elvis perkins in dearland @ cafe du nord (photos, review, etc.)
It’s midnight and the stage may well be shaking. Guitars, bass, and brass instruments are crowding the stage and a guy with an old-school marching bass drum hanging from his shoulders is hopping around while wailing on it. The band and crowd are into it.
Elvis Perkins in Dearland (myspace)–the full band version of Elvis Perkins–played the Cafe du Nord on Wednesday night. Tim Eriksen, both solo and as ‘Tim Erikson’s Shape Note Extravaganza’ opened.
Even with the opening act billed as it was, I was a bit surprised to see and hear a Sacred Harp group on stage. I’ve talked about Sacred Harp before and I even recognized one of the people on stage from the Berkeley’s Sacred Harp singing that I sang at. The group was good and the crown was receptive.
Everyone but Eriksen left after a few songs and he performed a few more only on fiddle, banjo and vocals. He had a really good grasp on the old-timey music and style. I really enjoyed his short set.
Elvis Perkins and his band went on stage after a lengthy break–one that, honestly, made be a bit antsy in its length. But when the band entered the stage and started to play some of its new songs, sounding good, I relaxed. It’s a big band: Elvis covered guitar and vocals; there was also a bassist, drummer, keyboardist/ trombonist/ guitarist and a trumpet player that joined the band for a few songs.
The front part of the set, the band played new songs. Elvis Perkins in Dearland with its New Orleans brass and rock tendencies, is quite different from the sparse songwriting of Ash Wednesday. I certainly like the new album, though the jury is still out on where it stacks up on a larger scale. In any case, the songs came across well live and the band was full of energy. A highlight from the early part of the set was was the slow New Orleans dirge of “I’ll be Arriving”, performed with the drummer crouched on the floor, banging a marching a drum and shaking bells.
Near the end of their set, they started to throw in songs that aren’t on the new album. One that Perkins introduced as “a song you may recognize” was “Ash Wednesday”. They did two J.P. Reese-penned Sacred Harp songs,
“Weeping Pilgrim”–which Perkins recently recorded a version of–and “Weeping Mary”, I believe. They finished up their set with perhaps their best known song, “While You Were Sleeping.”
Encores are a bit of a ruse and we know it. After minutes of clapping, the audience was slowly dying down when Elvis came back out. He did a request, “123 Goodbye” solo before bringing band back on to do a rousing version of “Doomsday”, which is where we began our story here.
