The Decemberists, Chicago Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

It was my fourth time seeing Portland based indie rockers The Decemberists, though my first time seeing them for a solo performance, rather than at a festival. Our seats in the Chicago Theatre were located towards the back of the orchestra, a little further back and to the left than for the Alabama Shakes. While the view was fine, I think the sound suffered from us being situated underneath the balcony. The sound wasn't terrible, but it made their mix of upbeat pop and instrumentally lush ballads sound distant, as if they weren't playing right in front of us.

The stage was sparsely adorned and lit except for an artsy backdrop of their most recent album cover. The members of the band include Colin Meloy (lead vocals, guitar, principal songwriter), Chris Funk (guitar, multi-instrumentalist), Jenny Conlee (keyboards, piano, Hammond organ, accordion), Nate Query (bass), and John Moen (drums). Frontman Colin Meloy did all the talking – chatting up the audience, introducing a few songs, and telling a few stories. He also did a few stripped down songs, only using part of the band.

Part of the reason that I love The Decembersists is because they have released so many concept albums, studio albums where all the music or lyrics contribute to a single overall theme or unified narrative. In the past, they’ve made a habit of playing these albums in their entirety, something else I generally appreciate. When I saw The Decembersists at a pair of festivals in 2009, they played a live performance of The Hazards of Love (2009). However, for some reason I didn’t particularly enjoy the first experience at Bonnaroo, while I loved the following one at Treasure Island. Perhaps I had a chance to listen to the album a bit more in the interim, or perhaps I was pulled to another stage at Bonnaroo and didn’t give the set my full attention. When they returned to Bonnaroo in 2011, they were mixing up their setlists considerably more, though I still enjoyed the show. This show at the Chicago Theatre pulled songs from an even broader array of their albums. Half of the evening’s songs were from their new album, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (2015). However, these were interspersed with selections from albums going all the way back to Her Majesty the Decemberists (2003) as well as others in between including Picaresque (2005), The Crane Wife (2007), The Hazards of Love, and The King Is Dead (2011).

Perhaps the highlight of the show was their closing number, “The Mariner's Revenge Song.” The song tells the tale of a ship’s crew being swallowed by a whale. The performance included a theatrical element, a large cardboard whale traveling across the stage to swallow the members of the band and a few small children who joined them onstage, presumably the band members’ children. After a brief interlude, in keeping with the lyrics of the song, Meloy returns to the microphone to sing alone about how he miraculously survived.

Setlist:
The Singer Addresses His Audience
Cavalry Captain
Down by the Water
Calamity Song (Hank, Eat Your Oatmeal Intro)
Till the Water’s All Long Gone
Philomena
The Wrong Year
Make You Better
The Crane Wife 3
The Island
Los Angeles, I'm Yours
Carolina Low
The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid
The Rake's Song
16 Military Wives
A Beginning Song
Encore:
12/17/12
The Mariner's Revenge Song