Friday, Dec. 18th 2009

Mew Was Rad

By LB

In hindsight, I probably should have waited until after the Mew show at Neumos last Thursday (12/10) to publish my ‘Best Shows I Saw This Year’ post, because this would’ve surely made it into the top five. My reasoning? The fancifully experimental Danish band took their stunning record No More Stories… and translated it perfectly to the stage for a sold out Seattle crowd.

I’ll be honest, I was pretty slammed during this show and I didn’t take very good notes, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one. The light brigade, however, was in full force, shocking our eyes into a color pandemonium of sorts: hot pink, bright white, alien green, and sun-surface orange. I imagine the film school background of Bo Madsen (guitar) and Jonas Bjerre (vocals) is responsible for the visual aesthetic of the band’s stage set up, as all sorts of projections made their way to the back wall, including the face of an old woman, a hypnotic circular thingy and creepy deer-headed skeletal creatures. Hot Tip: you can even watch all sorts of short Mew-made “films” over on the band’s website.

They began their arena-sized attack with “Introducing Palace Players”, and then quickly moved into And The Glass Handed Kites’ most popular songs: “Special” and “The Zookeeper’s Boy”. The wife and I had been waiting three long years to see them play those two songs live and (predictably) they didn’t disappoint. The first two were a natural choice to sandwich together, given the similarity in both of Madsen’s asymmetrical alligator riffs. Drummer Silas Jørgensen, who I’ve come to believe shaped No More Stories… just as much as either Bjerres or Madsen, was mostly hidden from our view but not from our ears. I don’t understand why his kick drum sounds so much better than everyone else’s.

Mew would play close to 14 or 15 songs, continuing with “Hawaii”, “Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy”, “Repeaterbeater”, and a couple older songs. Bjerres, dressed in a frumpy cardigan and ill-fitting slacks, is an odd fellow I must admit. He seems very coy and demure—effeminate even—sort of always looking at the crowd with the top of his eyeballs, and biting his bottom lip. It surprises me, given the dramatic bombast of the music, that he generally just stands there with his chin pointed upward, singing his weird little heart out instead of making a scene. He grabbed the guitar and maracas a few times. Madsen took care of the majority of “conversation” with the crowd. They finished with “Silas the Magic Car”, “Apocalypso”, and “Saviours of Jazz Ballet”. The encore began with “Circuitry of the Wolf”-cum-”Chinaberry Tree” and then “Beach” and another one I didn’t recognize. I wished they had played “Vaccine”.

The Lonely Forest were pretty entertaining; it’s just that I found myself thinking about which song sounded like which huge band the entire performance. Death Cab For Cutie, Radiohead, Sunny Day Real Estate, Nirvana. Channeling those types of bands, especially the young anthemic exuberance, will usually reap pretty good rewards in the fan department.