Given how intensely he remembers childhood, and the whispery way in which he often sings about it, you might expect Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox to be introverted, withdrawn, perpetually adrift in memory stew. On stage, he’s in fact totally unrestrained, compulsively communicative, even giddy, so that it seems he’s found a way to bring with him the moods and fascinations of childhood undamaged into adulthood. At the Fine Line, he stopped frequently to smell his armpits and channel their rock ‘n’ roll energy, shouting “Fuck yeah!” before starting the next song. Or he would ask if his vocals were too loud (they weren’t, though for a band whose lyrics are often indecipherable on record, these were the crispest vocals I’ve ever heard in concert). Or he would scream the name of a movie he’d just seen: “It was called THE DEAD ZONE!”
Utterly cute. To Cox’s left, bassist Josh Fauver, his placid expression alternately fearful and charming, is in a way the most interesting person to watch, as he stands very still and then moves forward imperceptibly slowly, as if to mimic a slow dolly-in with a movie camera, pulling you in with invisible technique. Moses Archuleta’s drumming is remarkable mostly for its sustained intensity. A critic might use the word motorik, and while that word strikes me as too coolly aesthetic, perhaps it’s the right one: the feat of endurance that makes “Nothing Ever Happened” possible is pure physics. And guitar maestro Lockett Pundt, hidden behind a new mustache, has as little stage presence as ever (we wouldn’t have it otherwise), even after finding the confidence to sing, articulately, the fine songs “Desire Lines” and “Fountain Stairs” from the new Halcyon Digest.
This quartet mostly played songs that could be made Heavy and Long (notable exception: one of their most fragile and heartsick songs, “Rainwater Cassette Exchange,” reconfigured as passé funk centered on a thumping bass line, brought off confidently, beautifully). Perhaps this (the Heavy-Longness) was an attempt to maintain an image of themselves as zenith rock ‘n’ rollers (which they will always be, no matter what) in the midst of the increasing lightness of their records. “Fluorescent Grey,” whose epic iteration was the beginning and end of their encore, is the essence of the early Deerhunter sound (a mere three years ago!), but because the band has gone from their Confusion Is Sex-era to their Daydream Nation-era in half the time it took Sonic Youth, the song already sounds like a relic from a distant past. The crucial moment, when the words march forward three or four at a time (“Why do I dream / So often of / His body when / His body will decay? / His flesh will be fluorescent grey”) is great verse, but the slow menace that surrounds it (and, in concert, consumes it!) is a bit foreign to where the band is now. There’s still a certain emphasis on the macabre in their new songs, but it’s now shot through with an intoxicating sense of romance.
“Don’t Cry” benefited most from this process of lengthening and intensifying (and clear, soulful singing), as this seemed a way of giving it due credit as an equal among the great songs on Halcyon Digest, where its two hazy and in-the-red minutes pass by in a blur. The songs on Halcyon Digest come in pairs, and in concert, “Don’t Cry,” a letter to a sad boy, sent from the future, was as gripping as its twin moment of childhood memoir, “Memory Boy,” the triumphant song where dad makes a brief reappearance. And “Revival,” whose intricate jangle is perhaps impossible to render live, ended up not far removed, musically, from “Don’t Cry,” even though these songs’ juxtaposition on record is quite a shocking transition. But while there was more stomp than shuffle in its live version, that moment when everything drops away except for Cox’s soaring voice and Fauver’s walking—nay, strolling—bass, was beyond glorious, again.
“Helicopter” was another striking example of Cox’s plaintive singing (he’ll have a “nice” voice yet), and those buoyant bursts of noise that bring on the chorus—precisely the sound that large speakers want to make—were magnificent. Lyrically the song recalls the character sketches Steve Albini wrote for Big Black in the 80s, the honesty of its first-hand account matched by a certain ambiguity, the difference being that the Russian sex slave in “Helicopter” is as effortlessly sympathetic as Albini’s malevolent uglies were effortlessly repulsive.
Opening act Real Estate have songs that are so fully formed that you can work out their twists and turns and get a clear idea of their best qualities even when you’re hearing them for the first time in concert, as I was. New 7” cut “Out of Tune” was the standout, with a melody that worms into your brain not because it’s designed for maximal hummability, but because it holds back, remains a little bit indefinable. I can’t whistle for you the way the guitar spins out its languid notes, but I can dream it.
And starting off the night, Casino Vs. Japan—whose laptop manipulations give rise to ambient dronescapes that conceal beguiling micro-melodies, like Tim Hecker and Boards of Canada dreaming a shared phantasmagoria—could have been called a palate cleanser, but here I must say something about the Fine Line, which is not a venue I like, or at least not one that ought to host artists such as these. All of the Fine Line’s inherent faults are encapsulated in the music that plays between sets, which is certainly not band-curated but instead eminently downtown-bland. How is any kind of progress possible when one is forced to listen to Muse’s “Uprising” moments before the ascension of a real rock ‘n’ roll band (Deerhunter)?
Anyway, such were the plethora of dudes and zero women who shared the stage with Deerhunter, but let us not doubt that this band loves women, and loves to be loved by women. That the only female character on Halcyon Digest is a mom who comes home dreaming is one of the most striking and purposeful elements of the album’s overall design, and evidence that this band always makes art when it could make niche rock ‘n’ roll. Deerhunter is the patron saint of the children of sad moms and absent dads, and that’s all of us, at one time or another. Our audience was a thankful lot.
Setlist:
Desire Lines
Hazel St.
Don’t Cry
Revival
Never Stops
Little Kids
Memory Boy
Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Fountain Stairs
Nothing Ever Happened
Helicopter
He Would Have Laughed
Fluorescent Grey (Encore)
