Fleet Foxes + Blitzen Trapper - Schubas Tavern (Chicago, IL; Apr. 6, 2008)

I’ve seen the Fleet Foxes three times now. In a sense, I have watched them grow. My first encounter with the Foxes came in the summer of 2006 at the Capitol Hill Block Party, in Seattle. This took place right after keyboardist/mandolin player/vocalist—scratch that: “multi-instrumentalist”—Casey Wescott joined the band. That show in Seattle was a sign of things to come. You could tell that lead vocalist and songwriter Robin Pecknold had a tremendous gift as both a singer and a songwriter. The songs they played there, most of them off of their demo, referenced their surf-rock and Americana influences. You could hear the Beach Boys, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, The Band, and others. The songs were great. The band was very good, but there wasn’t a whole lot that differentiated them from other bands that were doing similar things at the time.

By the time I saw them at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival more than a year later, much had changed. The songs the band played that night at the EMP’s Sky Church were much different than the ones featured on their demo. Their previous influences were still present, but they had been diluted, and their focus seemed to be more on creating unique harmonies and arrangements that were instead references to, as the Foxes describe it on their MySpace page, “Baroque pop,” “hymns,” and “fantasy movies.” I had grown very fond of the songs that were on their demo, and was disappointed to not hear any of them played that night. But I understood that they were growing and wanted to find a place for themselves in an ever-expanding music industry. The songs featured that night were more cohesive and deliberate, and you could tell that everyone was having more fun playing this new batch of tunes. I left that show with excitement for what was to come.

Last night at Schuba’s in Chicago, I finally got to see what they’ve been working toward for the past nine months. They started out by playing “Sun Giant,” the title track of their deput EP. Right off the bat, the voices of Christian, Robin and Casey joined to make the sound made familiar on Sun Giant. The opener bled right into “Sun It Rises,” which is set to be on their debut LP coming in June. Following these two songs, they went directly into “Drops in the River.” During the short breaks that did occur during their set, one could hear a pin drop: the Foxes were receiving the complete and undivided attention of the entire audience. They moved swiftly into passionate performances of “English House,” fan-favorite “White Winter Hymnal,” and “Your Protector.” Because the songs often blended together, there were not many moments to applaud, but when opportunities to do so arose, the crowd erupted.

“Oliver James” was next in the lineup, and the band let Robin handle it solo. Christian and Casey stepped to the side of the stage, took a breather, and just watched Robin sing. Sky took himself a seat, cross-legged on the stage, to watch the performance.

The on-stage banter was really very endearing. Robin regaled us with tales of his trying to tempt childhood friend Sky into playing the circle game earlier in the tour (for those unfamiliar with the circle game, it involves trying to get somebody to look at a circle that is made with your fingers while it is below waist-level. If the person looks at it he is punished by getting punched twice, lightly, in the arm). Robin even tried to get Sky to look twice on stage, but to no avail. Also, Robin was outed by Casey as a Dungeons & Dragons player. At one point Robin, in trying to laud the NPR show “Radio Lab,” mistakenly talked shit about “This American Life” to the wrong crowd, being that TAL is recorded in Chicago. For this, Robin was met with playful boos from the biased Chicago crowd. It was easy to tell this band was having a whole lot of fun on this tour.

Their set eventually came to end with a performance of “Blue Ridge Mountain,” which obviously struck a cord with the audience. As they finished the song, they were met with an uproar of applause from the enthralled crowd, who had remained relatively quiet throughout the show. The applause seemed to go on for at least five minutes, and lasted almost until they had taken down all of their instruments from the stage. This must have been something of a unique experience, as Robin looked into the crowd with a confused look on his face.

By the time Blitzen Trapper took the stage, about a quarter of the crowd had gone, but that didn’t stop them from putting on a great show. And as one of the crowd members shouted during their set, “They kicked the shit down.” They shined especially bright on songs like “Wild Mountain Nation,” and “Devil’s a Go-Go.” The crowd was equally as enthralled with Blitzen. The night ended with Blitzen Trapper inviting some of the members of the Foxes to join them to add percussion and vocals to their closing tune. It got so rowdy on stage that the drummer from Fleet Foxes Nick ended up severing one Blitzen Trapper’s guitar cords, while he was banging a cymbal into the ground. And here I was thinking the Foxes were a “mellow” band. The lead singer quickly called Nick out to the audience for his stage-crashing faux pas.

All in all, it was one of the most amazing concerts I have ever witnessed. A truly unique experience, featuring two amazing bands, who, as I learned before the show, are also some of the nicest guys I have ever met. 

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