The Fiery Furnaces, Southpaw, Brooklyn, NY. April 26, 2008.
One of my favorite bloggers, Kathy Cacace, was sent to cover the Fiery Furnaces at Brooklyn’s Southpaw on Saturday. As always, she writes the best shit:
The Fiery Furnaces are one of those bands I never entirely made up my mind about, so it’s extremely difficult to convince someone to go to their show with you. I was listening to Blueberry Boat for the first time in ages while washing dishes and, about six minutes into “Quay Cur,” my roommate, my most likely show buddy, said, “Hey. I—I don’t really like this.” I tried to defend them with my favorite song off of Gallowsbird’s Bark, “Rub-Alcohol Blues,” but I don’t think I won him over. But I wasn’t entirely won over myself; the great parts of the Fiery Furnaces’ complicated, eccentric albums are great, but the difficult parts always make me skip around to the Futureheads, or Felix da Housecat, or some other, easier “F” in my iTunes.
More after the jump
So, I went to Southpaw solo, waiting to be sold.
I was, completely. I would’ve been sold on the strength of Eleanor Friedberger’s personality alone, but their show as a whole was surprisingly uncomplicated, toe-tappable, and fun. Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger are the kind of genetically cool brother/sister duo I will never understand, because my brothers and I spend our quality time drinking beer on the porch on holidays after my parents go to bed and watching SNL reruns. We do not form indie-rock outfits. They do not play the keyboard like Matthew, and I am not one of the four girls on planet Earth that look good in high-waisted jeans like Eleanor. She’s one of the unlikeliest lead singers of a band I can think of—more like the grown-up hero of a pre-teen book about a girl who likes to read than rock star. But she delivers the Fiery Furnaces’ rapid-fire lyrics with the intensity of a preacher, or a salesman trying to talk you into a Cadillac.
From the moment they attacked their first song, “Single Again,” (best described as abuse-rock…maybe assault and funkery?), it was clear that the idiosyncratic elements of their recorded albums become straight-up dirty bar rock when played live. All of their songs get the Window City treatment and then some, which proved to be the exact formula to get a crowd of glasses-wearing Park Slopers to dance a little, and clap a lot.
I was surprised by how Doors-y the organ sounded live and, combined with a drummer that sounded like Animal the muppet at his most enthusiastic, it was only Eleanor’s frantic vocal delivery that tied the band I was seeing to the electronic tricksters I’d never completely loved. “Benton Harbor Blues” featured live vocoder but became a sad, pretty almost-folk song worthy of a name check in some Zach Braff vehicle. Ditto for “Evergreen,” and my old (and still) favorite, “Rub-Alcohol Blues.” Even a difficult, long song like “Chief Inspector Blancheflower” off Blueberry Boat was transformed into a fun brother/sister duet instead of parallel monologues over a track that never hooked me. Usually that song does nothing for me but encourage one more spin of the Shuffle roulette wheel when it comes up on my iPod.
By the end of the night, the Fiery Furnaces had a permanent place in my heart. I went to the show unconvinced, however, so it was really interesting to find myself standing behind The Superfan. He knew every word to every song, and they’ve got a LOT of words. He was that guy that yells out titles and “whooooooooo”s when there’s a quiet break and is both the first and last person applauding. He was there with a girlfriend who was not into the band, even a little bit. Whenever she’d go for another beer he’d dance like crazy until he spotted her coming back through the crowd and then he’d freeze, like they were playing Red Light Green Light. I think his enthusiasm did a lot to convince me there was something about the band to be loved, so thanks, Superfan. They ended up leaving early because I suppose getting laid will always win over staying for the last half hour of a show, but realizing you’re a at least little in love with a band is a close second.
