Ease All Trouble Off My Mind

The Fiery Furnaces @ Southpaw 4/26/2008
Single Again (with a bit of Smelling Cigarettes) / My Dog Was Lost But Now He’s Found / Whistle Rhapsody / Evergreen* / Duplexes of the Dead* / Automatic Husband* / Ex-Guru* / Navy Nurse / Pricked in the Heart* / Up In The North* / Straight Street* / Japanese Slippers / Benton Harbor Blues* / The Philadelphia Grand Jury / Clear Signal To Cairo / Police Sweater Blood Vow (brief, aborted after first chorus – Matthew on vocals and keys, Eleanor on drums) / South Is Only A Home (Eleanor vocal, Matthew keys, Bob on drums halfway through) / Oh Sweet Woods (Eleanor vocal, Matthew keys) / Slavin’ Away (Eleanor vocal, Matthew keys, Bob on drums) / Chief Inspector Blancheflower (full song, Eleanor vocals, Matthew keys and vocals, Bob on drums) / Rub Alcohol Blues* / In My Little Thatched Hut -> I’m In No Mood -> Teach Me Sweetheart -> In My Little Thatched Hut // Right By Conquest (All songs are the full quartet unless otherwise noted. Eleanor played guitar on songs marked with an asterisk.)

Aside from a couple bits at the beginning and the end of the show, this was not some breakneck medley, but instead a nice, long concert in which the band took their time and, for the most part, played rather straight versions of their songs. This incarnation of the Fiery Furnaces trades out Jason Loewenstein on guitar for the String Cheese Incident’s Kyle Hollingsworth on keyboards. From what I could tell, Matthew Friedberger played most, if not all, of the major themes and hooks, while Hollingsworth — a man who bears a striking resemblance to the legendary comic book hack Rob Liefeld, and has a very amusing habit of making funny faces as he mouths the sounds he makes on his synthesizer — played all the leads and goofy parts.

This was a remarkable show, maybe the second best Furnaces concert that I’ve seen, topped only by the performance of the Blueberry Boat medley at Webster Hall. Both shows included only a minimal amount of guitar, which suits the band very well — the variety of texture that comes from two keyboard players, each with an array of synths and organs, results in a much more rewarding and nuanced sound.

The Fiery Furnaces “Police Sweater Blood Vow” / “South Is Only A Home” (Live at Southpaw 4/26/2008) – Though I appreciate the tightness of the rehearsed full-band section of the shows, I’m always a sucker for the semi-improvised parts of Fiery Furnaces shows, particular those that boil the band down to Friedberger duo. This is a particularly inspired portion of the set — Eleanor switches to drums, and Matthew sings a bit of “Police Sweater Blood Vow,” one of the few post-Blueberry Boat songs with Eleanor-penned lyrics. Immediately after, the two play a loose, playful version of one of their all-time greatest tunes, “South Is Only A Home.” Bob D’Amico jumps in on the drums for the final verse and chorus to keep it from sounding too flat, but the performance still has the feeling of an informal living room recital.

The Fiery Furnaces “Rub Alcohol Blues” (Live at Southpaw 4/26/2008) – As far as I know, this tour is the first to include a full-band arrangement of “Rub Alcohol Blues,” or at least a version that approximates the arrangement on Gallowsbird’s Bark. Previously, the song was performed as a vocal/guitar piece, but with the keyboards, the song is allowed a more precise and complicated melancholy — it’s still among the most devastating tunes in their catalog, but its blow is cushioned somewhat by its layers of doubt and longing.

(Click here for the entire concert, which was recorded by the lovely NYC Taper. Click here to buy the Fiery Furnaces albums and merchandise from their online store.)