newsomAt a Volksbühne filled to the brim, Joanna Newsom and her Y's Street Band brought some of their magic to Berlin this past Wednesday. A crowd of all age groups chattered over the reverb-laden celtic harp music as stage technicians carefully lined up water bottles aside empty chairs before the lights went down and Alasdair Roberts entered from a door at the back of the stage opened and closed by a hidden person. Roberts, a Drag City Artist from Callander, Scotland (home of the last UK resident to be imprisoned under the "British Witchcraft Act of 1735" during WW II) plays a mixture of original and traditional guitar tunes and received attention several years ago from his collaboration with Will Oldham and Jason Molina entitled "Amalgamated Sons of Rest."
a. roberts He stood alone in the spotlight a bit nervous, effortlessly repositioning his capo and twisting into various alternate tunings throughout his set. Singing of ravens on gables and the like, his songs felt old, a similar set of influences to John Fahey certainly. His voice sang straightforward and true, focused more on the stories he wove than on stylizing his vocals. His third song featured a very high capo position, the strings buzzing and rattling comfortably under his Scottish accent, a fresh sound amidst an otherwise limited vernacular. It seems that there is a certain egolessness in playing traditional songs, a nod to the old and a small drive back down the nostalgic roads of heritage.
Alasdair Roberts comes off as sincere, carrying on a tradition of old, though his songs often blend into the background of all the songs you've heard. His guitar work is excellent, though familiar. Roberts finished his set with his eight and final song, a traditional English tune which is to be played while mourning over a dead body. A resonating low string droned over the song as the melody carefully built the old room, the surrounding family and the dead body which is being mourned, transporting the packed house into an old English country home populated by figures in all black, quiet and ghostly tears wishing their fallen kin up to the heavenly kingdom. This song was soaring and sad, resting any doubts about Roberts' middle-of-the-road set and putting him up on the level of "moving".
An outstanding end to a short and sweet performance. The crowd acted accordingly, applauding enthusiastically until the lights came up and then heading to the lobby to reload on a stereotypical filling of bretzel and bier as the reverby harp music resurfaced over the PA.
After a healthy intermission the crowd settled back down, funny guys intermittently trying to get rounds of applause going. A small crowd of bouncers in red shirts stood to the side of the stage, ready to enforce the curious rule that photos may be taken only during Newsom's first two songs. Hypothesizing about the rule people guessed that perhaps either Joanna would be too sweaty and disheveled by the end of two songs to be photogenic or else some sort of grand visual display would be unveiled as a surprise, a secret which the didn't want to give away on the first night of the European tour, perhaps Joanna playing harp atop an elephant, a pyrotechnic choreographed dance routine or some sort of striptease by the Y's Street Band.
newsomThe lights dimmed once again and the rear wall of the stage split to reveal the hallowed harp and empty chair which had also been properly sidelined by theater professionals with a neat row of three water bottles. The musicians came out, calmly grinning as the crowd seemed to fizz with excitement. Newsom appeared with her 4-inch heeled boots, band in tow and got right down to business, opening with "Bridges and Balloons" from her first full-length. Accompanied by Neal Morgan on percussion and vocals, Ryan Francesconi on banjo and an electrified Bulgarian-style tambura (both dressed in smart brown suits) and violin player Lila Skar, Newsom plucked and belted her way through Bridges and Balloons with new instrumentation and arrangements. Though she noted that the Volksbühne stage echoed like the voice of the Cheshire Cat disappearing into the night sky, the band sounded full and tight. Moving on to Emily, the opening track on her latest album Y's (Drag City), the quartet confidently interpreted the Van Dyke Parks orchestral arrangements with their minimal means and with perfect touch and taste. So often when a "singer-song-writer" attempts to "thicken up" their sound it ends in a clunky forced disaster of corniness. Joanna Newsom certainly had some excellently chosen help on her last album with Parks, Jim O'Rourke and Steve Albini, but the credit should go to Joanna alone who has overcome the hype and pressure with what she does best: incredible and innovative song-smithing.
Neal Morgan's drumming was sparse but powerful, making almost exclusive use of a single floor tom and a often hand-struck bass drum he placed the beats just right, sounding like timpani gingerly thundering. Lila played scored notation from a music stand just as carefully and Ryan's banjo and tambura wove its way into Joanna's odd picking structures and time signatures wonderfully. What was most impressive about these musicians is that they only added to the compositions by Newsom without pushing and pulling for spotlight, yet they did so without restraint and timidity. 
drummer boy
Making their way through a set of old and new songs, the group arrived at the fifth song, Sawdust and Diamonds, which features Joanna and her harp alone, clocking in somewhere around 10 minutes on the album, though transcending a sense of time in concert. Hearing and seeing this song live, to me, was one of the best musical moments I've encountered in the last several years. The lyrics fall from Newsom like white inside of a snowglobe onto a world constructed by amazing finger work, a carefully made quilt with a blanket of timeless bits of snow. Words pile together to create something more vivid than a story or feeling and somehow strike a nerve in the exact way the best music in the world, regardless of language or culture, always does. For me this song sets her on a new trajectory away from folk-fads and indie quirkiness, and on to a new plane of greatness. For some reason David Bowie comes to mind: taking things to the next level, creating a complete piece which is delivered with such great confidence, like a realization. And you at once sense from Joanna a lack of egotism yet a feeling that she knows that this song is it -- the first step into another land, new territory, though still in a natural realm. Live, the crowd was floored and the applause following this song went on and on, unusually long. It was as if everyone saw something spectacular that they'd never seen before.
Newsom rounded out the set with five more songs, three from The Milk-Eyed Mender, a Scottish traditional song and another new one. The crowd called for an encore, as per tradition and she came back out alone to play Sadie. Seeing this show, so polished yet completely lacking in sterility and so accomplished yet unpretentious with lyrics that are strides ahead of her contemporaries in any genre made me wonder what everyone else is doing wrong. If music can be this sincere with a full sense of pushing history forward whilst appreciating old folk traditions, if music can be this thorough why isn't there more being made like it? If anything Joanna's music should be a call to all music makers everywhere, regardless of genre or whether they like her songs or not, to step up their game, to make pivotal things happen in sound and to create to the full extent of their vision. I can feel that she is well on her way. ---chris kline
jnewsom
