It was startling to hear Vernon explain the backstory of his best-known hit, and even more jarring when the percussion faded in (the original song has no drums) and turned the searching, weary song into something of a pop march. He joked onstage Wednesday that they were now going back to an early song in their extensive discography (Bon Iver only has two full-length albums) as he started strumming “Flume” - the definitive, haunting cut that captured the attention of his first fans. And yet most of the world now knows them best for “Bon Iver, Bon Iver,” ( see my review) a much bigger sound that arrives at musical peaks and troughs through wildly complicated compositions. Even as the stages got bigger through the years, the band remained focused on small songs sung beautifully. I first saw the band in a small, cramped Williamsburg venue, when they only had one album’s worth of material to work with and joked about running out of things to do. In fact, for any longtime fan who has been following Vernon since 2007 or 2008 when his first CD leaked online, caught the ears of the Internet, and launched a most unlikely music career for a musician who had nearly thrown in the towel, the concert was a trippy affair. ( MORE: Bon Iver Erotic Stories: Move Over, Ryan Gosling) ![]() On one extreme of the performance were cuts like “Perth,” with its horns, marching drums and exclamatory harmonies, and the layered electronic sprint “Calgary,” but on the other were moments when the faux candles went dim, the band left the stage and we were left with frontman Justin Vernon strumming away on “re:Stacks” (see above), singing of tough times, toggling between soft baritone and aching falsetto, every consonant slicing through a silenced crowd that seemed to appreciate this yearning more than the polished bombast. And yet Bon Iver’s new set finds inspiring ways of bridging the band’s two halves, and reminding fans (some more familiar with his back catalog than most) that what has always distinguished this group was a soft and organic sound that contrasts wonderfully with the digitally altered noise now clogging the radio airwaves. And in response to this surging fame, they invested in their stage show, adding projected movies, faux candles, elaborate lighting cues and extensive distortion effects to a performance that used to be comprised solely of two acoustic guitars and two drummers.įor a band that started with such a small sound, the cavernous Radio City Music Hall must have seemed like foreboding space to play. ![]() The mellow and ethereal pop group, which originally brought a neo-folk twist to singer-songwriter heartbreak in their somber viral debut “For Emma, Forever Ago” before striking a broader chamber pop sound in the Grammy-nominated “Bon Iver, Bon Iver,” has been rising in prominence quickly over the last year ( Pitchfork singled out their sophomore effort as the best album of 2011). ![]() Follow was midway through the second song Wednesday night at Radio City Music Hall - the first in a series of shows at the historic New York City landmark, and the inaugural night of a new international tour - that Bon Iver fully unveiled all the new bells and whistles.
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