How Was The Show - Mercury Rev, The Duke Spirit at Fine Line Music Café

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Mercury Rev and The Duke Spirit at Fine Line Music Café on 12/12/08

By: David de Young

Liela Moss of The Duke Spirit - Photo by Jenn Barnett (Click photo for full set)

The Duke Spirit

London England’s The Duke Spirit was glad to be back in Minneapolis Friday night opening for Mercury Rev and they said so right out of the gate as they burst into their first song “Lion Rip” from their 2005 album Cuts Across The Land. It was no doubt true they had not been away long; they had last played the Fine Line November 8^th. Friday was my first time seeing them live, and not really knowing what to expect I was quite impressed with the caliber of their live show.

For their second song they broke into the bouncy “Lassoo” from their 2008 album, Neptune, the disc which had familiarized me with the band. Over the next 45 minutes their 11 song set wowed the audience, some of whom had clearly seen them during their previous engagement, many of whom were singing along, the most supportive pressed up against the Fine Line stage grooving.

Singer Liela Moss likes to pose. It was almost as if when she was not singing or playing one of many percussion instruments, she was standing in one vogue pose or another.

“Dog Roses” and “Step and the Walk” were very well received. During “Step and the Walk” Moss complimented Brody McCoy of Brit Rock at The Top and those standing near him for the “good moves down front.” But nothing was as well received as “My Sunken Treasure,” which the band had apparently not played their last time in town.

The Duke Spirit has mastered the art of building a song energetically as the song progresses. That mastery doesn’t always have to be there for a band to be good live, but when it’s present in the proper amounts, it can make an otherwise average show thrilling. And that’s what happened Friday. “Red Weather” was just one example of such a song. As layer upon layer was added it felt like the song was literally growing before our ears. Though it shares little musically with the song, it definitely builds in the way The Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” does.

“You Really Wake Up The Love In Me” was another of my favorites in the set. The band has cited Sonic Youth as one of their many influences and this song reminds me specifically of that band. As the band played its shimmering chorus, the energy in the club was so palpable that I was surprised (and a little disappointed) when I turned around to see not so many people. Pre-sale for this show had been low, but I’m here to tell you those who passed on it, you’d already missed a great rock show even if you’d just come for The Duke Spirit. The band closed with “Love is an Unfamiliar Name.”

Jonathan Donahue of Mercury Rev - Photo by Jenn Barnett (click photo for full set)

Mercury Rev

Mercury Rev is without question one of my favorite bands, and there album All Is Dream is on my list of the best of this decade. I had not seen them live since 2002. That was at England’s Glastonbury Festival, and since that show was both outdoors and during the day there was no light show. Tonight at the Fine Line the band brought nothing less than a full-on multimedia presentation. Before they even emerged from the basement green room, they featured a video from the Roaring ‘20s. Then an announcement on screen read “The show is about to begin.”

To strains of the Cocteau Twins, a montage of miscellaneous still and moving images were projected on the screen behind the band, photos of the band at work and play, Nick Drake, dogs, a public service announcement about adoption, a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest poster, Miles Davis, a copy of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. It was all over the place really, but clearly far from random. Then the smoke machine kicked, in and the band took the stage.

Some people had wondered going into the show how this band with quite the back catalog (they’ve been around since the mid ‘80s) would mix their old and new songs. I have an answer for that question now: brilliantly. The set as a whole relied most heavily on songs from their September, 2008 release Snowflake Midnight, Deserters Songs (1998) and All Is Dream (2001) there were also a couple from The Secret Migration (2005). They updated the older songs, rearranged lyrics here and there and melded them all together into a set with an orchestral sound that was exceedingly well-balanced.

Mercury Rev opened with an extended version of “Snowflake in a Hot World” the opening track off Snowflake Midnight.

When vocalist Jonathan Donahue performs, it is like a ritual. He makes more conscious use of the energy and traditional motions of rock and roll than most musicians I have seen in concert. “Snowflake” segued into the atmospheric and instrumental “October Sunshine” as a bit of a bridge to “Holes” from Deserters Songs. (It was “Goddess on a Highway” – not played tonight – from that classic album that had first brought me to this band in about 2001.)

The first twenty five minutes of the set had gone by before I was sure what had hit me. I was actually too engrossed to notice if my rapture was being shared by the rest of the club. The club was busier than earlier but still far from packed. I was so close up front I didn’t notice it.

Donahue interacted with the multi-media backdrop at many times, at many times surfing, hands out at his sides, on one leg against the continuously rolling movie being shown behind him. As the band played “Black Forest” Donahue pretended to cast spells (was it pretending?) on the band members with his hands, first on guitarist Grasshopper and then on the remaining members. (The band is currently touring as 5-piece including drums, bass and keyboards.) Ultimately, all smiles, Donahue would also cast spells on the members of the audience in the front rows. They must have been smile spells, because that was their net result, at least on me.

It was about this point in the set as the band was breaking into “The Funny Bird” that I noticed a lot of stress had magically fallen away from me and I was beginning to feel really rather happy and relaxed. Sure, Mercury Rev is one of my favorite bands, but these days it takes more than just seeing one of my favorite bands to do that to me. Mercury Rev on their albums and in their live shows seems to focus on the intention of communicating and enlightening as well as entertaining. During “People Are So Unpredictable” an Alan Watts quotation flashed on the screen for a second that kind of summed up for me where the first part of the set had taken me: “There is no hurry and there is nowhere else to be.”

The set proper ended with “Opus 40” segueing into a take-off on “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads. Two magnificent encores included “The Dark Is Rising” which almost always makes me cry, even now, and found Donahue smiling and flexing his muscles (it was cute; he’s a tiny guy) at the end where he sings “In my dreams I’m always strong.” The grand finale was “Senses on Fire,” which found the band rocking to a great close with beats of guitar, cymbal, drum, bass that had the sonic power of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Mercury Rev’s tour with The Duke Spirit wraps up in San Francisco on December 18^th in San Francisco.

Mercury Rev Set list