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Live review: Shearwater at Central Presbyterian Church
Playing full albums, especially classic ones, in a live setting has become trendy in recent years, with a range of artists including the Pixies and Slick Rick attempting to bring their studio creations to life as they were originally presented. Usually these shows include a performance of only one album, sometimes in addition to a set of other material. To suggest that a band play more than this might sound a little unreasonable or even crazy. That is just what Austin indie rockers Shearwater did on Saturday night, offering three albums, 2006’s “Palo Santo,” 2008’s “Rook,” and 2010’s “The Golden Archipelago.”
To add another layer to the experience, the band performed inside the Central Presbyterian Church downtown, a cavernous chapel overlooked by a giant cross and colorful stained glass artwork that gave the show a solemn feel. The band would not need to compete with the chorus of conversations that typically take place at shows in Austin’s other live music venues.
Shearwater’s frontman Jonathan Meiburg began the night by admitting just how big of a task the band faced, a show that was twice as long as anything they had ever played. After that they started into “Palo Santo,” the more folk-rooted of the three albums, with Meiburg on banjo for “Red Sea, Black Sea,” which was followed by the jangly blues of “White Waves.” Each of these albums has a sort of epic rock number at its climax; on “Palo Santo” that song is “Hail, Mary,” with the band increasing the tension around a slow groove until it takes on a life of its own.
Meiburg explained before the last song on “Palo Santo” that the album was about the life and death of the singer Nico, and told a story about how they had gone in search of her grave while on tour in Germany but had been unable to find it. In addition to helping to reinforce the image of Meiburg-as-troubadour, it also emphasized the difference between this album and the two that would follow, which feel bigger.
One big difference as the band moved on to “Rook” was the work of drummer Thor Harris, thundering in on “Century Eyes” or whispering elsewhere on the vibraphone. These songs, notably the title track and the popular “Snow Leopard,” are darker and more layered. During Saturday’s show they also seemed to be the point at which the band really hit its stride, putting to rest the fear that Meiburg had expressed earlier that people in the audience would leave early.
The band began the final third of the evening (they took a short break between each album) with a recording of the national anthem of the Bikini Atoll, a haunting piece of music which set the tone for the rest of “The Golden Archipelago,” their most recent outing. The release feels like a close cousin to “Rook,” striking a similar balance of restraint and angst as they moved from songs like the somber “Hidden Lakes” to the more high-intensity “Corridors.”
Toward the end, a sense of excitement passed through the audience, and onstage to the band as well, that they had accomplished what they had set out to do. As Meiburg noted on the band’s website, while this wasn’t a farewell show, it was a bookend, and he was right. It was a nice moment, an end to what felt like a personal concert by a band that has given its fans three strong albums in four years. It rightfully ended with a standing ovation.
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