This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
It seems crazy to me that I've only been listening to Andrew Bird for four years, because it seems like so much longer. But it's true - and I can even narrow my introduction to the singer/violin virtuoso/whistling wonder to the very week I first heard his name. It was 2005, and it was the week of Easter. I remember because The Mysterious Production of Eggs seemed like a holiday-appropriate album title in the studio that day, and that's the only reason I picked it out of WRVU rotation. Little did I know how madly I would fall in love with Mr. Bird in the four years since.
It's now 2009, and since falling in love with The Mysterious Production of Eggs, I've fallen in love with Bird's two more recent studio albums - Armchair Apocrypha and Noble Beast - in turn. Really it's hard not to - the classical lover in me appreciates the lush violin and ethereal whistling; the lover of all things quirky in me tumbles for his literate lyrics and odd subject material. Every time his music grows a bit too poppy, he swerves into mad genius territory; every time things get a little too strange, the catchiest of melodies floats to the surface. And I'm not sure any other musician in the past few years has come up with quite as many melodic passages that pluck my heart strings as deftly as Bird plucks those of his violin - in songwriting he just seems to get it in a way that often elevates his music head and shoulders above all others in sight.
But enough of my fawning over his records, and on to the real reason I was pleased as punch to see Andrew Bird appear on the Bonnaroo lineup. I have seen very few musicians who translate their music to the stage quite as well as Bird does, and that's saying something, considering how dense and complicated some of his arrangements are. You will see and hear the man achieve unprecedented feats with a violin, you will be shocked and amazed by his whistling prowess, and you will be utterly entertained by his completely random on-stage banter, where he is as likely to reference a pirate as a pair of socks. I've managed to see Andrew Bird a handful of times in the past few years, and since the very first show - a Grimey's in-store where he played in striped socks and seemed like a cross between a little boy and a schitzophrenic wizard - he has never failed to charm me from the first plink of his xylophone to the last fading whistle. I'm not positive how he will adapt his show to a much larger stage for Bonnaroo, but with loads of festival performances tucked under his belt, I have no doubt he knows what he's doing, and no doubt the show will be amazing.
"Fitz and the Dizzy Spells" (from Noble Beast)
"Tables and Chairs" (from The Mysterious Production of Eggs)
Andrew Bird will play the Which Stage on Sunday from 4:15-5:45 p.m. Check out the full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
