MERCURY REV + Dean & Britta @ Cabaret Du Musee

By Lachlan Fletcher - The Subplot - 12/08/2008

As I walked into the Cabaret du Musée on Monday, December 8 to see the Mercury Rev, I wondered to myself, "I wonder how they are going to pull off "The Dark is Rising?" This fan favourite track is representative of the band's sound: dramatic, over-the-top orchestration with dynamics that keep the listener at the song's mercy. I am pleased to report that the show did not fall short of the standard set by the band's recordings.

The opening act was a rather laid back American act called Dean and Britta, whose music was an appropriate warm-up for the melodrama of the Mercury Rev. Their sound was like Leonard Cohen covering jazzier Pink Floyd selections in Nashville, with Kim Gordon accompanying on vocals. Despite their name, the act included more than just Dean (guitar and vocals) and Britta (bass and vocals); they were supported by a keyboardist and a drummer. The duo displayed solid song structure, but were not the tightest live act around. Worth a look if you're into the relaxed end of the music spectrum.    

In contrast to the slight looseness of the opening band, the Mercury Rev was tight and demanded the audience's attention from even before they stepped onstage all the way through the second encore. The band was introduced by a montage of film, video, and digital effects front projected from the balcony. It continued throughout the show, casting the shadows of the band members (original members Jonathon Donahue on vocals and guitar, Grasshopper on keyboards, and Dave Fridmann on bass accompanied by extremely energetic drummer Carlos Anthony Molina and guitarist Jeff Mercel) on the backdrop (an effect taken advantage of by Donahue).  Donahue's theatrics held the audience's attention, conducting the band while conveying all of the emotion and drama that characterizes the Mercury Rev's sound. He had frequent interaction with the band, had his guitar on and off fluidly (without interrupting the song as this can do), and made the crowd feel wanted. The video montage was also seamlessly run, and an integral part of the performance. It was clear that the concert was meant to be more than merely a band playing music, but an intellectual experience driven by complex imagery that meshed with the music intelligently (in other words it didn't just look cool). Behind the band there were four EXTREMELY bright neon strobes controlled in synch with the performance that filled the small concert hall with colour. These three elements combined to sear the senses of the audience and almost put us into sensory overload as we tried to process all of the performance's aspects at once.    

Keeping us on the edge of complete mental saturation allowed the band to manipulate songs and orchestrate them differently. Most of the selections were from the post-David Baker era, and even then they were modified in orchestration to be in the timbre of Mercury Rev's latest release, 2008’s Snowflake Midnight. This new album was released alongside another posted online for free download entitled Strange Attractor. This free release was a compilation of instrumental mp3's; I was curious to see if any of these would be used in a live setting, but they were not. By applying Snowflake Midnight's sound to the majority of the concert, it felt more like a symphony than a pop band performing a collection of songs. The orchestral feel of the show added to its grandiosity. The last song of the set concluded with an extremely impressive robot-like percussion jam complete with a zombie battle between Donahue and Fridmann. The first encore was the song everybody seemed to be waiting for; the crowd was as loud as it was the entire night when the band came out and exploded into the epic orchestral intro of “The Dark is Rising." The band answered any questions I may have had about how this song was to be pulled off. The entire building shook during the buildups and it was impossible to turn away during the verses. This exposition of unabashedly larger-than-life musical goodness was followed by “Senses on Fire” (also off of Snowflake Midnight.) It was as close to punk rock as the band got the entire night, and they kept the entire building energized until the music stopped. An appropriate end to an evening of bombardment of the senses; all of senses were in a state of conflagration and were only extinguished as we walked through the doors and back into the frigid Montreal night.

Tune into The Subplot with Lachlan every Friday from 9AM -10AM starting January 9th!