Review Wed May 19 2010

Review: Patrick Watson @ Schubas 5/17/10

[This review was submitted by reader Rob Reid, who also shot the photo at the show when Patrick jumped into the audience.]

What would a self-described "musical mad scientist," citing influences such as David Lynch, classical legend Eric Satie, and classic rock legend Neil Young, sound like? While it's unlikely that the world has heard anything quite like Wooden Arms, Patrick Watson's third album, it seems even more unlikely that the experiments of this band of musical chemists could have succeeded so brilliantly as to draw a near-capacity crowd at Schubas on a Monday night. Wooden Arms, a deeply-layered masterpiece featuring liberal use of strings, electronics, and found objects such as a tree branch, a bicycle wheel, and wine glasses, relies heavily on studio wizardry to create what could make for an emotionally dynamic movie soundtrack. But how would this music come across in a live setting in real time?

Following an all-too-brief opening set featuring the eerily beautiful vocals and lyrical poeticism of Chicago newcomer McKenzie Toma, Patrick Watson's band took the stage. Simon Angell eased into the opening song with a fingerstyle acoustic guitar pattern, joined by Mishka Stein on bass and later Robbie Kuster's shuffling brush rhythm. "After all the flames in the morning," Watson hushed into "Fireweed's" opening vocal melody, "the quiet ashes fell for hours and hours." Visually, the band kept a low profile on the dimly lit stage, dwarfed by their own giant shadows cast by shifting stage lights. Kuster launched the second tune, "Tracy's Waters," with a haunting wine glass percussion rhythm, and later took the sonic spotlight (still on a mostly dark stage) with a short drum solo in "Beijing." Meanwhile, Watson's piano playing sometimes resembled the whimsical soundtrack of mice running down stairs in classic television cartoons.

Some of Watson's more conventional songs, like the dreamy "Big Bird in a Small Cage" and his solo piano piece "The Great Escape," stood up well with simple arrangements built primarily on interesting melodies, but the band was at its most compelling on more eclectic tunes such as the dark cabaret waltz "Traveling Salesman." Watson sang through a megaphone, and then used a brass mute to emulate (or perhaps very convincingly pantomime) a raucous trombone solo. While so many technical pieces seemed to fit into place perfectly, the audience laughed sympathetically when Watson's mic stand came apart in the middle of the song and he told his band, "Do an extra round, guys!" to buy himself some time before singing the next verse. Despite the mishap, not a beat was skipped in the emotional fabric of the song, which closed with a bold and torrential Hendrix-esque guitar solo.

Eclecticism and experimentation ran deep throughout the set, including a piece in 7/4 time ("Luscious Life") and a track called "Where the Wild Things Are" (yes, inspired by the book) which featured a slide kazoo, the squeal of a deflating balloon, and an angelic chorus sampled spookily with reverse reverb. While Watson wasn't done battling the defiant mic stand ("C'mon mic stand, Jesus Christ!"), the mellow "Man Like You" recalled the subtlety and hushed vocals of Nick Drake at his best. After Watson closed the set with a new tune, "Sit Down in Silence," the crowd made the need for an encore obvious with their feet, their voices, and their hands.

"It's kinda hard to do the encore thing [at Schubas] because you can't really hide anywhere," Watson noted dryly as he strapped on a makeshift backpack device resembling a robotic flower- each stem a megaphone projected from a central battery-powered amplifier. "It's like, how long you been behind the piano for?" Watson and his band climbed off the stage and into the midst of the crowd for an intimate encore, first an unreleased tune featuring a musical saw, and then a major key dirge "Man Under the Sea" that got the audience stomping and singing along, "Just me, the fish, and the sea... Just me, the fish, and the sea."

-Rob Reid