(I’m not really here until March, just poking my head up for a short-short review of last night’s concert by The Decemberists.)

The Decemberists rock. I was explicitly planning not to buy the album (there’s about a straight day’s music coming from New Zealand in the post)… but after hearing the concert, I couldn’t pass it up. They played mainly material from the album “The Crane Wife”, along with a few oldies (including a single one I recognised! I haven’t been a fan for long). I got the album on the strength of (part 1 of) the title song, a lovely ballad which I’m going to have to learn on the mandocello.

In fact it’s made for the mandocello, or at least the octave mandolin. I know, because that’s what the frontman played it on. No kidding. I told you they rock.

Here’s the string lineup, divvied up between six people:

  • guitars:
    • 2x 6str semi-acoustic
    • 1x 6str electric
    • 1x 12str semi-acoustic
    • 1x 12str electric
    • 1x 6str lap (slide)
  • basses:
    • 1x electric
    • 1x upright (small high-cut body, weird-looking thing)
  • 2x fiddles
  • 1x 5str banjo
  • 1x hurdy-gurdy
  • 1x bouzouki/mandola/octave mandolin

… that’s a lot of strings. I took notes. (Apart from the strings, I recall keyboards, a xylophone, piano accordion, and a kit drummer. I may have missed something there, honestly I only had eyes for the mandola.)

Trying to describe their sound I just had an epiphany: they’re REM. With a bouzouki.

Highly recommended. The site has stuff to listen to, and eMusic has several albums. I have “Castaways and Cutouts”, which is more folky and less rocky than the latest, and very good.