Concert Review: Mewithoutyou, the Dear Hunter
I walked into the Granada last night toward the end of a set by a band with at least seven members, a lot of hair and - I'm pretty sure - a full horn section. I didn't catch their name, but the hirsute frontman, who wore a Davy Crockett-ish hat, made a big point about how he was actually homeless. In a sense, isn't every touring musician? -- I thought to myself as he left the stage.
Mewithoutyou parted the tall grass to the Granada last night.
I'd timed my arrival to catch the middle band Dear Hunter and the night's headliner Mewithoutyou. Considering the earnestness of what had come before and the intensity expected later, the mood of Dear Hunter's set was predictably serious. Things started off sort of ambient and built into a series of epic songs that at times reminded me of Coheed and Cambria and Lovedrug.
I wasn't always sure what the burly Dear Hunter frontman (who could totally pass as a deer hunter) was singing about, but it all seemed really important, thanks to the proggy guitars. A highlight was an old-fashioned spiritual tune that employed the vocals of all six band members.
"Spiritual" was a theme for the evening's line-up. Mewithoutyou, one of the biggest bands on the Christian label Tooth and Nail, plays songs that are rife with spiritual ruminations. They are also some of the most lyrically complex songs I have heard in a long time.
They're dense with metaphor; bugs, animals and plants - not always anthropomorphized - pop up in nearly every tune. I have finally concluded that these songs are little parables, with beetles learning lessons and porcupines speaking truths from the trees. Musically, Mewithoutyou's Christian freak folk is interesting, too - never hooky, alternating between acoustic and electric, incorporating such varied instrumentation as maracas, tambourine, trumpet and accordion.
Mewithoutyou performed beneath a clothesline strung with clothes, white lights wound around the stage. I've seen this band about three times now - I enjoy its crackling energy. I still don't own a Mewithoutyou album, and that may be what kept me from feelin' it in as deeply as the sweet-faced kids who sang along to every word. There were also some sound issues - frontman Aaron Weiss' voice faded out a few times and the levels just seemed a little off for the beginning of the set. I think maybe I just wasn't in the mood for the madman singer's over-the-top antics.
There is perhaps no more polite frontman on Earth. The petite guy thanked the audience over and over. He may have even blessed them. At one point he complimented the crowd for being so good at anticipating a mid-song silence and remaining church-mice silent until the band kicked in again.
But Weiss also seems like the kind of eccentric you'd discreetly stare at in the coffee shop and steer clear of on the street - where he might be shouting out rhetorical questions. He kept pulling his little white knit stocking cap on and off through the set. His actual performance style reminds me of a Pentecostal kid in the body of Henry David Thoreau. Weiss' face and body contorts as he recites his poetry, stories of rhododendrons and horseshoe crabs tumbling out of his mouth in a shaky, Conor Oberst-like monotone, the music swelling, shaking, rattling, grating right along.
Truly, the whole package can be a little much.
Here's a clip of Mewithoutyou performing some other time at the Granada:
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