Partying hard at Spring Gala offered an exceptional Friday night for many students, while others preferred the lowdown and smooth stylings of Colin Meloy, lead singer of The Decemberists. The indie-rocker took the stage at the Tralf Music Hall Friday night, performing a solo acoustic show with special guest Laura Gibson.
The Portland native sang older favorites from The Decemberist's extensive song catalogue, as well as some new material, to the delight of his dedicated fans.
Opening the show with her passively powerful voice was Gibson, also hailing from Portland. She played a mix of songs from her CD, If you come to greet me, including the lackluster "Country, Country" and "Nightwatch."
"It was great. I liked the control of her voice," said Christine Pilaroscia, an independent research representative from Rochester. "The words in all the songs had different meanings."
Gibson's songs were reminiscent of pleasant lullabies, which made her set far from energizing.
"She sounded kind of tired," said Kelly Harrington, an Amherst resident. "She was really good, talented and cute, but she made me tired."
Despite Gibson's mixed reception, the audience united in excitement when Meloy took the stage.
He opened the night with "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade," which showed off both his prowess on the acoustic guitar and his impressive ability to concentrate his vocal tone.
Audience members entranced by Meloy's voice hardly noticed any discrepancies in natural sound quality, but it was obvious something was wrong as Meloy grimaced throughout the gypsy song "Shiny."
Problems with sound persisted throughout the night. The monitors occasionally made crackling noises, which subsided as the night went on.
Meloy's expression often showed he was not too happy with the venue's sound quality, and kept the sound crew on their toes.
Songs such as "Oh! Valencia," a gangland drama from the 2006 release The Crane Wife, and "The Engine Driver" and "On the Bus Mall" from Picaresque, made audiences cheer and sing along, capturing the essence of the trademark Decemberist sound, even though Meloy was the group's only representative.
Despite putting some rowdy audience members back in their place, banter between Meloy played the show on a very intimate level. He started out by thanking everyone for coming, since they could have easily gone down the street to hear "Mustang Sally" at a bar.
"I really like the interaction with the audience," said Eric Mowery, a student from Mansfield, Pa. "I've been to tons of different shows and I hate it when they don't say anything. He was very comfortable, not cold or mechanical."
Meloy delighted the audience with new songs, including what he described as a "rallying cry for disenfranchised miners in 1917." With lyrics like "This is why we fight/this is why we lie awake," listeners who were far from miners could apply the song's message to their own lives.
"The new songs were amazing," said Beth Klice, a Rochester resident. "You didn't want those to end."
While the audience was blown away with the brand new material, Maloy also relied on them to remember lyrics to old songs. An audience member corrected Meloy when he sang, "it was you and me" instead of "it was me and you/that made this three come out of two." The red wine Meloy sipped between sets may have contributed to the few errors, but mistaken lyrics didn't change the audiences' overall impression.
"Mistakes are charming," said Colin Griffin, a senior film major. "They're always my favorite part."
One of the highlights of the night for Jeremy Espenshade, a student from Rochester, was when Meloy explained the story behind "The Apology Song," a fan favorite from The Decemberists' first EP.
Meloy revealed that the saga was based on true events: he was looking after Madeline, a red Schwinn bicycle, for his friend Steven while he was away in England. One day Meloy forgot to lock the bicycle and it was stolen, prompting him to write the song and sing it over the phone to Steven, who listened silently on the other end.
A year after the song was written, Meloy ran into an acquaintance that was riding a red Schwinn bicycle eerily similar to Steven's. It was the one and only Madeline, who had been rescued from a dumpster only a week earlier. Meloy threw a huge surprise party for Steven, who wept tears of joy when reunited with Madeline.
A month later, Meloy was helping his friend move, and accidently backed into something, blissfully forgetting Madeline was on the back of his car.
"I crushed the bicycle," Meloy said. "It's a wreck of what it once was, and it's hanging on his wall. And that's the story."
Closing the night with "A Cautionary Song," Meloy made audiences clap and cheer for nearly two minutes before returning for an encore. He played the more recent "Shankill Butchers" from The Crane Wife, and closed the night with a traditional folk song that very few audience members recognized and even he forgot the words to.
While Meloy's set did not go off without a hitch, audience members remained tried and true and a few flubbed lyrics would not shake them.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
