The Longest Way Round Is The Sweetest Way Home

The Fiery Furnaces @ Le Poisson Rouge 6/11/2009

Here Comes The Summer / Leaky Tunnel / Chris Michaels / I’m Going Away / The End Is Near / Charmaine Champagne / Cut The Cake / Ray Bouvier / Staring At The Steeple / Even In The Rain / Keep Me In The Dark / Lost At Sea / Cups and Punches / Take Me Round Again / Drive To Dallas / Duplexes Of The Dead / Automatic Husband / Ex-Guru / Worry Worry / Wolf Notes // Single Again

I kept thinking about boxing during this show. The Fiery Furnaces were performing in the round under stark, dramatic lights in a relatively small room, and they played their songs in the leanest, most rhythmically taut ways possible in a guitar/bass/drums arrangement. This was particularly true in the opening trio of oldies, in which the melodies of the songs were foregrounded and unchanged, but the tone of the music was far more menacing and intense than usual. I was initially quite surprised that the performance was entirely focused on guitars given that I’m Going Away is such a piano-centric album, but for the most part, transposing the parts to guitar worked just fine, and in some cases (“Ray Bouvier,” “Even In The Rain”) improved the song in general. The new numbers were played fairly straight for the most part, but the old Friedberger perversity came around in some questionable decisions in playing the two best songs from the new record, “Drive To Dallas” and “Take Me Round Again.” They didn’t mess those tunes up, per se, but you could sense their restlessness with the material.

The Fiery Furnaces “The End Is Near”

Eleanor kept mentioning how most of the new songs were about ex-boyfriends, and at one point was almost apologizing for that fact, joking that they were now out of ideas. She shouldn’t be so concerned. I love the more obscure and whimsical topics that have come up in past Furnaces releases, but I welcome this more straightforward, emotionally driven material. They’ve done it before, but it’s never been as bittersweet as this, nor as neat and soulful. It was time to shift gears, and they made exactly the right decision — their melodic sensibility is front and center, the preciousness is dialed down considerably.

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