The Decemberists are an indie-rock band hailing from Portland, Oregon. Founded in 2000, with the release of their initial EP 5 Songs in 2001, it makes sense that the audience at the band’s April 7 show at Ithaca’s State Theater was mainly eager millennials and Gen X-ers. Sitting down, my friends and I found ourselves surrounded by a crowd with “a mode age of approximately 32,” guesstimated Amalia Walker ’17. The funny thing about a band of moms and dads is the other parents that they attract: the once teens and young adults who were fans at the very beginning of the band’s career. Audience members toted plastic cups filled with beer, giving the theater a smell all-too-realistic for a crowd looking to rock out and relive their glory days.
Not only did I pin myself out of place in terms of age, but I was severely unversed in my knowledge of the band’s repertoire. Walking into the show, I was familiar with the band name and had heard some songs of theirs here and there. By no means was I a fan in comparison to this audience of megafans. The show was likely the best-attended show I had ever seen at The State at which a majority of the crowd genuinely knew every single lyric. Walking in, I was excited to determine my opinion of the band through live performance, the best indicator of their talent, and to get to know their music.
The opening act, singer-songwriter Julien Barker, was a bit of a turn-off. Her soft, breathy, ultra-lyrical songs all sounded like the twelfth track of an album, slow and tender. Once The Decemberists began, however, I woke up from the trance the opening lullabies had inflicted. The enthusiasm of the audience not only heightened my overall interest throughout the event, but brought my attention to The Decemberists’ legitimacy as a group and talent as confirmed by their fans’ devotion.
The band itself described one song as dad rock, and it certainly fit the bill, as dads all around me clapped their hands and danced. But the music was not cringeworthy. The band of two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, organist, part-time backup singers, part-time percussionists, and an occasional trumpeter brought a full and complex arrangement to each song. Their lyrics reflected the instrumentals, telling tales of historical significance and sagas of love. Right off the bat, the band stomped on stage and stormed the audience with a song reminiscent of an epic viking battle, a dynamic theme that carried on throughout the set. Unlike bands of today dubbed “indie-rock,” The Decemberists compromised neither their lyrical or instrumental compositions in favor of a hint of techno electronica: they were old-school in their following and sense of musical self-respect, and new-school in their unique instrumental experiments and on-stage enactments of their songs.
The show was well-paced for the most part, primarily fast and upbeat with the exception of a few slow songs thoughtfully interspersed throughout the lineup. Only towards the end of an almost two-hour set did the show become slightly tiring for me. The encore ran for a solid 10 minutes. It was in the midst of this encore that Walker’s jaw dropped and she exclaimed that she had just witnessed the performance of the most vulgar lyrics she had ever heard outside of rap. It came as a complete surprise, keeping us on our toes at the end of an exciting, but nonetheless PG, show up until that point.
As the first show in their current tour “The Shuffling Off to Ragnarӧk” (Spring Tour 2017), there were some inherent and expected kinks, bound to be worked out during the following weeks over the course of which the band will promote new and old music alike. Although the show had its technical flaws, I felt privy to a new set and lucky to have been able to get to know such a talented, revered, and eclectic band as The Decemberists live at The State.