Artist: Fiery Furnaces
Venue: Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY
Date: August 26, 2006
I’m late I’m late I’m late! My frequent refrain, but today particularly so, as I hear a marching band-like torrent of drums coming from somewhere in the direction I was walking/jogging/almost running to. I guess 4 o’clock really meant 4 — imagine that! While not quite on the “40 side of Vernon” that the Illmatic warns of, I was also a little worried about attending a show only 10 blocks north of the infamous Queensbridge. Getting off the train, however, I was immediately put at ease about my reservations — with a band like Fiery Furnaces (FF), how could I have expected anything but a hipster crowd, moving en masse on Broadway (the Astoria one) towards the water. Lemmings, all of us.
Still, being 15 minutes late meant that I missed at most half of the first number. So varied are the live shows of Fiery Furnaces that I could honestly call them a mixture of rock, rap, latin, electronic, and jazz, and yet you would be utterly unprepared for the 30-minute long sonic assaults they unleash. With two drummers working overtime, Eleanor Friedberg concentrating hard (but in a relaxed sort of pose), Matthew just chilling on the organ, and the guitarist periodically emerging from the din of the music with a triumphantly catchy riff, the show was everything I asked for and more.
The “more” was audience participation halfway through the show. 2 guys who stayed back, but kept shouting random phrases until Eleanor had to acknowledge them. She asked what “23″ meant (no response), and that there were kids present and so their other less cryptic and more aggressive comments were less welcome (btw who brings kids to an FF concert? Not that there’s anything inappropriate about it, but with some of the densest music and oblique lyrics of any popular band I’ve heard, I can’t imagine it being very enjoyable for them). Fortunately, it turned out that their later demands for “we want music” were sincere — when the band resumed playing after the brief respite, the two guys stopped trolling.
Listening to several of their albums since their last show I attended, I had slowly but surely fallen into a deep love and respect for their music (at one point listening exclusively to FF for almost an entire week straight), and I had been struck by two things:
- Eleanor has a very limited singing range. At many times, she’s more speaking her lines than singing them.
- Although rarely letting the listener dwell long on them, the band can whip out some incredibly catchy tunes.
Both of these observations were not only borne out at the show, but in fact amplified. I can scarcely recall Eleanor singing at any point during the show (alas, no “Turning Round”, and even “Teach Me Sweetheart” was interspersed with another song, and just spoken). It doesn’t really seem to matter though, since the rest of the band more than made up for it. This was most easily recognizable in the rare instances they would suddenly converge onto a simple yet beautiful melody, giving us just a taste of the kind of riffs other bands might plow through 2 albums to find, but which the FF so effortlessly turns out, before diving back into much deeper waters. While part of me wishes they would devote more time to these shallow yet pleasurable beaches, I’m on the whole much happier that they have the courage and skill to chart more dangerous territory.
It’s strange, but I’m reminded now of a very different group that seems to be fulfilling this same duty in the oceans of the dance-pop world: Of Montreal. Their rather unexpected cover of a FF song in their last concert seems much more apropos now. So, explorers of the musical world: I salute you, and eagerly await the tales of your future discoveries!
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