Gig: The Vic Chesnutt Band

The Vic Chesnutt Band (Clare & The Reasons)

Lee's Palace. Saturday, November 7, 2009.

Despite a fairly longstanding (if somewhat wayward) appreciation of Vic Chesnutt, I had never actually seen him playing live.¹ I had even missed him touring 2007's Everything I Say, his first collaboration with the Constellation Records crew — including members of the powerful Silver Mt. Zion & Tra-La-La Band — an album whose sweep had impressed me. So when I saw that he was coming through town with that crew (and guitar hero Guy Picciotto as well) I was sure not to miss it.

So, after making my way up from College St. and my earlier gig, found myself in good time at a still-fairly quiet Lee's Palace. As is frequently the case, the seats around the floor were filled with early arrivals, but there weren't too many folks standing around as the openers took the stage.

Making for something of a contrast with the headliner was the bright folk-pop of Clare & the Reasons. The four-piece, under the leadership and silky voice of Clare Muldaur, was lined up standing across the front of the stage, microphones decorated with small trees. The band shifted instruments frequently and with great skill, often switching between two or three during the course of a song. Wearing hand-crafted arrows on their clothing (in celebration of new album Arrow) the band played intricately arranged tunes — it's rather telling that her previosu album'd contained appearances by Sufjan Stevens and Van Dyke Parks. Especially in tracks like the quiet loveliness of "Wake Up (You Sleepy Head)" they brought to mind a more straight-up version of our own beloved Snowblink.

Despite getting a little goofy on the last night of their tour — especially Olivier Manchon, who started the evening insisting that all stage banter be presented in both English and French, and would later veer off into some riffing on Top Gun — the music was pretty and inordinately well-crafted. For all that, though, while I enjoyed the songs and their presentation, I was sort of left with a feeling of, "Well, it's all nice, but..." — which mostly indicates that this isn't the sort of thing I'm likely to rush home to listen to. But nothing to complain about when hearing it presented live so compellingly, and even less so when the band isn't fighting against crowd chatter.

Listen to a track from this set here.

By this time, there was a good-sized crowd on hand, but it was a relaxed, older crowd, comfortable to sit if possible, or hang back otherwise, leaving the floor in front of the stage relatively open and with plenty elbow room for us down front. But sitting down and hanging back certainly don't indicate a lack of intensity, as the band would go on to show. They took the stage eight deep behind Vic Chesnutt, with double bass, violin, keybs and no less than four guitarists — all able to play with great restraint and a powerful feel for dynamics. Even if that seems like a lot of players, there was never any more parts than any given song required — as necessary, instruments would be put down, and players would leave the stage, always leaving the right amount of noise swirling around the cracked voice and guitar up front.

A singular songwriter with a talent for spotting small, evocative details, Chesnutt fits well as a contemporary inheritor of the Southern Gothic tradition. On this night, he opened playing solo, reaching back to '93's Drunk for "Supernatural" — a song that shows his gifts for grounding the fantastical ("out of body experience / I flew around the little room once / on intravenous Demerol / it weren't supernatural") before the band joined in on "Everything I Say" from North Star Deserter — the night's first epic, clocking in at over ten minutes. Suddenly, all of the virtues of this collaboration were in sharp focus, where even the thinnest of melodic frames could be woven into a menacing thrum, surging in several waves of swelling orchestral noise. Then back again to West of Rome for "Sponge", this one getting the full-on widescreen arrangement before arriving at the new album, starting with "Concord Country Jubilee", perhaps the most optimistic track. Though some artists might tend to build up to that, Chesnutt is fine with starting with optimism and getting increasingly harrowing as the night goes on. Continuing with the new material, "Chinaberry Tree" and "Chain" were particularly fantastic, leading up to "You Are Never Alone", another epic, featuring Vic's self-aware meta-commentary in the song's middle ("okay, now how am I going to get out of this solo? There might be an amazing segueway... any second now... nope — I'm going to have to punt, Canadian football-style.")

In fact, Chesnutt — in a rumpled old suit and grey toque, his guitar slung over his shoulder by a tattered length of twine — exhibited an amusing stage presence throughout the night, whether struggling to open a water bottle or pointing out how palace, where he comes from, evidently has a different meaning than hereabouts. The ninety-minute main set ended with "Flirted with You All My Life", a rebuff to Death's unchivalrous advances, presented with jaunty tapped hi-hat rhythm and e-bow grandeur. Chesnutt stayed on for a solo run through "Where Were You" before the band rejoined him to close things out with "Warm". Generally an excellent show throughout, with the idiosyncratic songwriting complemented by a fine balance between measured textures and justified bombast.

Listen to a track from this set here.

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¹ Although, in point of fact, this wasn't the first time I had a ticket to see him. True story. Back a lifetime ago, on a Saturday night in April '99, I was as eager as hell to see Wilco for the first time. Touring a newly-released Summerteeth, they were arguably at the peak of their powers, and were almost certainly my fave band just then. And, as an added bonus, the opener was Vic Chesnutt, getting his quick moment of major-label exposure. I was going to the show with an acquaintance of mine, whom I happened to have a large, undisclosed crush on. She'd invited me over to her place for a couple beers before the show, so I went over and hung out a spell, downing a few Mooseheads. Under the circumstances, I was having a groovy time, and though I was eager to get to the show, I was also fine with prolonging the deliciously angsty and slightly tipsy moment. Eventually, we got on the streetcar and headed down to the show — which was at the Guvernment, of all places — and I figured I'd probably missed the opener by now, but such is the price of a cool time. When we eventually got there, we were surprised to see a crush of people streaming out of the venue. Stopping someone to inquire, we were told that Wilco had just finished — we had managed to miss the entire gig. Disappointing at the time, but looking back after I realize that I ended up seeing several Wilco shows, but never another afternoon with my friend, who I fell out of touch with, and never pressed anything.

If this relates at all to the show at hand, it might be inasmuch as going in, I was vaguely hopeful that Chesnutt might play "Kick My Ass", which'd probably make me think bemusedly of 1999. But he didn't.