Fleet Foxes & Blitzen Trapper – Apollo, Manchester – 11/9/09
5/5
By: Alex Hibbert
A red sky hangs low above Manchester, rippling pink clouds a portent warning of the bucolic pleasures to come tonight in Ardwick's usually grey suburban setting. Another natural product lined in otherworldly hues awaits as we enter the Apollo theatre's cavernous recesses to find Blitzen Trapper peddling their noir-infused Americana, joined intermittently by Fleet Foxes themselves. The Portland sextet have steadily progressed from indie-folk upstarts to bona-fide muso's since 2007's Wild Mountain Nation, but if the latest Black River Killer EP at times felt like they were destined to reside in Uncut's linear boxes tonight’s performance negates that, as a ruckus of acid-fried instrumentation cajoles each other above the stage.
If that latest release does feel like a progression to a more mature sound then Blitzen Trapper's live performance suggests the same only in confidence. The guitars squeal and the harmony’s as good as anything that comes later, but it's Trapper's more bewildering nuances that belie them to be the campfire lit crazies we know and love. The macabre ballad 'Black River Killer' hardly allays prior fears, but then a keyboard dissects Eric Earley's Cash like croon and transforms the tale into a fuzzed out cantor - a bewitching trick. Elsewhere rootsy melody's inflected with Melodica, Harmonica and a wah-wah Blues Harp, and though Blitzen Trapper's sound seems built for the camaraderie between Trapper's wiry figures, when Earley takes to the stage alone to pick out 'Not Your Lover' the intimacy's no less welcome, tonight promises great things to come.
The thing about watching Fleet Foxes pore over their instruments is it feels like something special’s taking place, a difficult feat when you consider the band are only one EP and one album into their life. Helping tonight is the crowd - typically bearded in parts, incredibly young in others - all reacting perfectly to the spectacle above. For 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song' they're hushed, 'Ragged Wood' uncharacteristically raucous and as lead man Robin Pecknold returns alone for the encore, eschews amplification intimating that there's "something in the air" and runs through traditional folk song 'Katie Cruel', there's not a sound to be heard beside the perfection unfolding itself from his lone figure.
If these are sounds forged in the roots then they’re twisted growths. As each note swells the chest of the band assembled above and expels those with gasps below, you’re reminded that though celestial music with beards seems ten-a-penny since the Seattle five piece launched their debut onto the world, the Foxes’ offering always stood out from the rest.
‘White Winter Hymnal’ sounds more caustic beneath the glaring lights of the Apollo’s illuminations, ‘Mykonos’ crushes the intimacy with sound whereas after album closer ‘Oliver James’ the reverent quiet pops in the air as an applause lasts and lasts and lasts, Pecknold all the while drinking from his mug humbly. On stage the band play with aplomb, but their lead man shines brighter. Like Americana’s holy saviour, with a crown of red cotton and shaking beauty from simplicity, when he picks his guitar carefully and asks “why does the earth move around the sun?” The perfect answer feels like moments like this.
Fleet Foxes’ J. Tillman played a Rockfeedback Session for our cameras early this year – see the footage below...
Artists in this article: Blitzen Trapper, Fleet Foxes
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