Zooey Deschanel singing at the Great American

Tonight marked the first live show from the already heavily blogged (and grammatically questionable) She & Him (myspace). I’ll talk about their performance in a moment here, but let me first cover some of the opening bands.

Due to a giant line outside at the will call booth, I sadly missed Emily Jane White. I like her and would have liked to see her play again.

Adam Stephens of Two Gallants was the first act up when I got there. He played guitar, piano and harmonica while singing folky songs. He also had a female vocalist/ cellist along for some songs. He did a number of originals and a cover of Cash’s “I’ve been Everywhere” (or was it another city-naming classic country song?). It was, like most of the set, nice but fairly unremarkable.

Whispertown2000 was up next. They’re a group with two female vocalists, one of which was also on guitar; a bassist and a drummer. They did some musical chairs in there as well, so there was all manners of switching up. They had a sound that referenced classic country music and 60s pop as well. In a way to both disclaim this statement and review the performance, let’s say it had been a long day and when the band ended their set, I was okay with that.

Of course what everyone was eagerly waiting for She & Him. The group is just M Ward (guitars, piano, vocals) and Zooey Deschanel (lead vocals, piano), but the touring band included, I believe, some M Ward associates. A bassist, a rhythm guitarist and a drummer (all on backup vocals except the drummer) rounded out the stage set up.

Their set included what must be most of their originals, plus a few covers, like Smokey’s “You Really got a Hold on Me” and Sam Cooke’s “Bring it Back Home” (give those a listen). (Another really solid cover was I Put a Spell on You which closed out their encore.) Those, in fact, along with a gorgeous piano song (the first piano number they played; the title, I don’t know) were the highlights of the set. The musicianship was good and Zooey’s voice is great. The songwriting is pretty decent–some engaging lyrics and melodies.

There’s an implication here, though, when anyone talks about this band, one must think about the scale on which each person is judging them. There’s celebrity cache–this is an actress band. On that scale–”for a movie star”–this is really good music. On the scale of bands that have headlined the Great American, this set was nice and had a warm feeling to it, but it wasn’t up to the caliber of excellent shows I’d see at the venue. Like many people, I didn’t know what to expect coming into this show, so I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t blown away either.

As an aside, as it turns out the bloggerati were there. I met:

• Chris from Gorilla v Bear
• Justin from Aquarium Drunkard
• Chryde from Take Away Shows

All nice people, though our interactions were brief.

Update: Check out Natalie’s photos of the show at Pitchfork.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 2:12 am Posted by adrian in SF bay area, blogs, live review, photos. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.