CALEXICO + Woodpigeon @ Le National

By Andrij Radio - West African Hour - 07/07/2008

When I got to Le National at 8:30, the opening band, Woodpigeon, was unfortunately already half-way done their set. I was surprised since almost every show I’ve been to in Montreal starts at least an hour after it’s supposed to, but maybe that’s what comes out of mostly going to shows put on by art students. I’d never heard Woodpigeon before, but they were certainly an appropriate opener for Calexico, style-wise. An eight member ensemble featuring all the usual instruments (guitar, drums, bass and keyboards), Woodpigeon also featured a violin, and half of the members in the band sang, often producing very bluegrass-y harmonies. Like Calexico, they played fairly relaxed alternative country, but so relaxed that I started getting quite bored even though I only watched them play for half an hour. Though Woodpigeon had a formidable enveloping sound, the four harmonizing voices providing a full and resonant quality to the music, they did not convey a lot of energy or passion onstage. Besides them not really being my style of music, I just felt like there was nothing special to their performance, nothing that would make seeing them live better than listening to a recording. One personal highlight was a song in which they took their style to a more experimental edge, doing some ambient, Sonic Youth-style guitar work.

The interlude between the end of their set and the beginning of Calexico’s seemed to go on forever. Since I didn’t have any friends around to talk to, I did some hamstring stretches and gazed around the venue. I also chuckled every time the crowd started shouting when some roadie came on stage to set up for Calexico. You can really tell that people are eager for a performance when they start hooting and hollering at the guy tuning the guitar.

Calexico began their set with just two members of the band, lead vocalist and guitarist Joey Burns, and percussionist John Convertino, burning up some 60’s style instrumental surf rock. I love surf guitar, and was surprised and enthusiastic. Then the rest of the band came onstage, bringing with them a steel guitar, a bass, some vibes, trumpets, and an accordion (it seems that many members of the band are multi-instrumentalists). True to their name (Calexico = California/Mexico), the band served up a spicy dish of alternative country mixed with Mexican rhythms and melodies. Paul Niehaus provided the country with his haunting pedal steel, while Jacob Valenzuela and Martin Wenk supplied the definitive Mexican qualities with their piercing trumpets. At one point, I really felt like I was in a Clint Eastwood movie. The band played five or six tracks from their album Feast of Wire -- which is the only Calexico album I actually know well -- and those seemed to be the tracks the audience responded most to. Joey Burns kept up a great rapport with the audience throughout the performance, often complimenting our fair city (he said the secret of our greatness was our disco), and at one point even singing an entire song apart from the rest of the band, in French, all about hanging out here. He either really loves Montreal or is really good at talking up the audience of any given city. Unlike Woodpigeon, Calexico was relaxed musically, but nonetheless conveyed a lot of energy onstage. Towards the end of the set my only disappointment was that there had been no dance-y music, but then Calexico started busting out some new songs that got the crowd moving, and my thirst to dance was quenched.

I don’t like country, including most alternative country that I’ve heard, but I love Calexico, which suggests to me that they have a broader appeal than most alternative country bands, partly due to the Mexican qualities, partly due to their experimentalism, and partly due to the highly original songwriting style of Burns and Convertino. Despite Woodpigeons lackluster performance, this was a great show. The sound was good, the visuals were great (a dark greenish-yellow set the tone for Calexico’s desert style), and there was even some dancing. They are definitely an act worth checking out.

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