Concert: Fleet Foxes, DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, DC

Fleet Foxes hit D.C. this week, and seeing them at DAR Constitution Hall in downtown D.C. made me feel like I was sitting in an extremely large coffee shop in Seattle, with lots of girls in horn-rimmed glasses, and guys all wearing variations of the same plaid flannel. Fleet Foxes, or “Fresh Foxes,” as a local DC news station referred to them during a weekend events update, have a unique sound, which has garnered them critical praise and strong album sales since they broke into the indie music scene four years ago. Though there are some obvious influences, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Elliott Smith, any folk music from the 60s, early country, and even the Beach Boys, they are still a difficult band to peg or pigeonhole. There is an obvious folk/country quality to their music, and when I hear them, I think of mournful church choirs – though it’s more a hippie-beardo choir, singing with a reverence for nature and the world around them. I’d go to that church.

On tour right now for the release of their second album, Helplessness Blues, just released this May, Fleet Foxes developed a huge following in 2008, without any hit singles, based on the strength of their brilliant second EP, Sun Giant, and their first album, Fleet Foxes. Opening up for Fleet Foxes currently is another Seattle band, The Cave Singers, reformed with former members of Pretty Girls Make Graves. For a three-piece, The Cave Singers put out a pretty good rusty-vocals, blues-fueled foot-stompin’ opening performance.

Unfortunately, this show was at DAR Constitution Hall in downtown DC, as I have to say DAR really does not seem to be made for concerts. If you sit on either side, especially up high, the sight lines can be bad, and the acoustics seem poor from almost any seat. Despite this, a quieter show like Fleet Foxes came off really well, unlike, say, a roaring My Morning Jacket show I saw there two years ago, where the music turned into mush, especially the higher up you sat.

Playing nine of the 12 songs on Helplessness Blues, two songs from the Sun Giant EP (including the powerfully beautiful “Mykonos”), and seven songs from their first album, Fleet Foxes sliced and diced a great set of tracks from all of their popular releases up to this point. Their harmonies immediately beckon one to sing along, and through many tracks, the crowd did just that, though more at a low murmur, rather than a full-out sing along. The last song of the encore, “Helplessness Blues,” the title track, especially roused the crowd from their mellow attentiveness to stand up and sing along.

Fleet Foxes’ music has a sort of timeless quality, with their soaring, perfect harmonies, full and rich acoustic textures, and plaintive lyrics, recalling ‘60s folkster poets, rhapsodizing over the loss of innocence. And innocent, at least at this point, is how the extremely young six band members of Fleet Foxes come off. Robin Pecknold, the band leader and songwriter, is only 24 years old, having put together Fleet Foxes in the Seattle area in 2006.

For the current album, recorded on the Sub Pop label, Pecknold says, “we all went up to Woodstock, New York, to record at Dreamland Recording, where our friends in Beach House had had a good experience recording their last album Teen Dream.” There is a dreamy quality to Fleet Foxes studio music, which still comes through when you see them live, and the list of different acoustic instruments they play is impressive. Their harmonies are precise, and they all seem to have wonderful voices. This, combined with their tight acoustic sound, made for a mesmerizing live performance. There is an intelligent and quiet beauty to all of their music, which seems to foretell the potential for a band that is here to stay, and be brilliantly creative for a long time. The concert ended as it had begun, with the crowd rising to their feet to applaud this band that obviously pours their hearts (and minds) into all of their music.

Check out the setlist here.

Musichord Rating: 9/10  

Concert: Robert Plant and the Band of Joy, DAR Constitution Hall, Washington DC

Robert Plant and the Band of Joy performed at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. this week, and luckily I was there. As usual, Robert Plant has surrounded himself with stellar musicians, all of whom he worked with recording the Band of Joy album, and has now taken on tour as well. Plant’s accompanying musicians include Buddy Miller on guitar, Patty Griffin on vocals and rhythm guitar (check out her solo album Flaming Red; it’s great), Byron House on bass, Marco Giovino on drums, and multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott. Scott played acoustic guitar, mandolin, electric guitar and banjo within the first five songs and the band took many opportunities to showcase their individual talents, singing a few songs of their own, sharing lead musical efforts, and displaying the immense talents of what is really a supergroup of musicians that Plant has assembled.  The Band of Joy is the band that Robert Plant was in before Led Zeppelin, and he has reincarnated the name, to bring the blues music that originally inspired him back to life.

Working with Alison Krauss and T-Bone Burnett on the Raising Sands album led Plant down a road of countrifying, bluesifying and even swampifying his music, which he has continued to pursue on the Band of Joy album and tour. Buddy Miller, a virtuoso guitarist, musician and producer, also worked on Raising Sand and he worked with Plant on the arrangements and music of the album of mostly blues, folk and country covers, some songs stretching back decades before Plant was even starting to think about joining Jimmy Page in the “New” Yardbirds.  A lot of bands from the late 60s were influenced by early American blues, and Plant, and of course Led Zeppelin, were no exception. Everyone from Clapton to the Stones to 60s Fleetwood Mac embraced the “British Blues” influence, and Plant, rather than take the $200 Million he and Page were allegedly offered several years ago to “rehash old hits” as Plant put it, has gone back to those original inspirations.

If you see Plant on the Band of Joy tour, you are still going to hear some Led Zeppelin, but it has been reworked, rearranged, and generally made slower and bluesier, obviously to keep it fresh for Plant. Indeed, for Plant, the song is not remaining the same. He performed “Black Dog”, “Gallows Pole”, “Ramble On”, “Tangerine”, and more as well as past solo material, such as the growled-out, slowed down version of “Tall Cool One”, and a bluesy doo-wop version of “In The Mood”.  However, a good bit of the music performed was also from the album which included new renditions of old traditional classics that are favorites of Plant, and/or worked with the musical direction that Plant has pursued, like “Angel Dance” a Los Lobos cover, “Harm’s Swift Way” by Townes Van Zandt, or “Cindy, I’ll Marry You Someday’, a folk music standard from the turn of the century (the 20th century that is).  

Regardless, what is brilliant and beautiful about the path Plant has taken is that, whether you prefer country or rock and roll, or even wanted only old Led Zeppelin songs, there’s no way you can be displeased; the whole concert rocked, and did traditional country and rock and roll proud, whether Scott was on  banjo, Miller was on electric guitar, or Plant himself was belting out his own powerful notes – leading to a few moments where you have to think, “Ok, well, if he wanted to do Zeppelin again, he sure could.”

However, in a recent interview on  www.robertplant.com, Plant was quoted as saying, “I don’t want to scream ‘Immigrant Song’ every night for the rest of my life, and I’m not sure I could.” At 62, Plant obviously feels that course is a musical dead end, and the only way to keep on is to keep on creating something new. The Zep fans, I’m sure, are crushed to hear that, but as long as he keeps on making great music – and putting on killer rock shows – we really can’t complain.

Musichord Rating: 9/10