It’s the first night of a European tour and it’s been a while since they played, so you can excuse a little ring rustiness from The Decemberists. It does take them a few songs to hit their stride, and a few gremlins remain throughout the evening, but by the time they hit ‘Down By The Water’, from 2011’s incredible The King Is Dead, the quintet from Portland, along with two superb backing singers, have a packed Vicar Street in the palm of their hand, or in the hand of singer Colin Meloy, anyway.
On record, The Decemberists sound as democratic as any other band, but in the flesh, it’s clear that Meloy is more than just a frontman. He’s the benign dictator, the ringleader, the folk made flesh, and he leads his merry minstrels on a madcap adventure through all manner of musical shapes, from the 70s-ish soft rock of ‘Los Angeles, I’m Yours’ to murder ballad, ‘Eli, The Barrow Boy’ or the classic folk of ‘Carolina Low’, which tips more than its cap to the classic ‘Wayfaring Stranger’.
Meloy exudes charisma, whether he’s musing surreally about Morrissey wandering around Dublin’s Natural History Museum, riffing about VH1 Storytellers or leading band and audience in an impromptu version of Spandau Ballet’s mush-fest ‘True’.
Frontman aside, The Decemberists don’t look like a rock band, or rather, they look like the kind of band that would be formed for a dare after a Christmas party mash-up between a bunch of graphic designers and an accountancy firm. But looks can be deceiving, and together Meloy and Chris Funk (guitar, mandolin and assorted weird instruments), Jenny Conlee (keyboards, accordion, theatrical vocals), Nate Query (bass), and John Moen (drums) create quite a racket, particularly on the drum-tastic ‘The Rake’s Song’ and the hilarious and moving ‘The Sporting Life’. Other highlights include the majestic ‘O Valencia’, the downright gorgeous ‘June Hymn’ and ‘A Beginning Song’, arguably the finest moment on current LP, What A Beautiful World, What A Terrible World.
The real eye-opener, however, is their second and final encore, which is an epic, dramatic and highly theatrical run through ’The Mariner’s Revenge Song’. It’s a Greek tragedy put to music, complete with mass audience swayalong and a hilarious lesson in how to scream when you’re being eaten by a whale. Educational as well as entertaining, The Decemberists give good gig.