A Close Encounter with the Fiery Furnaces, 10/29/07, Blueberry Hill, St. Louis

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To say that I had become obsessed with the Fiery Furnaces since I had seen them at Desdemona last year would be something of an understatement. It wasn’t just a great show; it was one of those rare, earth-shattering, mind-melting concert experiences that had completely broken down and rebuilt my expectations of what a simple four-piece band could pull off in a live setting. It was an explosion of sound and possibility, set off with minimal effects and stage trickery, and only the barest of garage rock instrumentation, and yet the result was thoroughly overwhelming.

The Fiery Furnaces, after all, aren’t the sort of band to leave a person wanting more. It’s a uniquely American trait, I think, this emphasis on overindulgence and excess, and the Fiery Furnaces are, without question, an all-American band. It’s as if the siblings Friedberger are hell-bent on pursuing a strategy of complete and total domination of their audience; oppressing us with music; subjugating us with more hooks, more extended solos, more convoluted story lines, more syllables per meter, more misleading prog rock intros, more confounding bridges, and more songs crammed within songs than the human brain can possibly comprehend in a single sitting.

I was exhausted. I was exalted. I was whipped.

And then there was Eleanor. I don’t know what it was – the elocution; the awkward, reluctant stage presence; the bangs – whatever it was, I was captivated. This fast-talking, big-haired rock’n'roller with the flood pants and ankle boots managed to reign total control over my concentration, despite the outbursts of noise and feedback and tempo changes. Just like Joyce DeWitt in Three’s Company, she was at once entirely out of place and yet completely essential to the scene, staying grounded while everything around her spiraled out of control beyond reason. I just stood there the whole show, like Ralph Furley, wide-eyed, gawking.

So you can imagine my surprise when I descended the stairs of Blueberry Hill to the Duck Room and the first person I encounter is none other than Ms. Eleanor Friedberger herself.

“Hi Todd, I’m Eleanor,” she said. I froze. Did I hear that correctly? Apparently not. She must’ve said “Ted” or “Tom,” and besides, she wasn’t even looking in my direction. She was talking to the dude behind the merch counter (Ted or Tom) explaining the prices of their various wares. I just played it cool and pretended to look at the tee-shirts, even though I was so flustered it wasn’t until after she left that I realized I had been looking intently at the opening band’s clothing rack for the past few minutes.

What kind of merch guy doesn’t know Eleanor Friedberger, I muttered to myself, incredulously, as I headed over to the bar to calm my nerves.

Thankfully, the crowd that night was extremely helpful in calming me down, freely offering me refills from their pitchers, a request with which I greedily obliged. A man next to me, explaining how this was the third time he’d seen the Furnaces, detailed for me the differences between a St. Louis audience and, say, an audience from Chicago, where he first saw the band. In St. Louis, he said, the audience is more low-key. We’re just here to drink some beer and enjoy a rock show. In Chicago, it’s like they’re paying respect to royalty. When Eleanor walked on the stage there, everyone’s jaws dropped and their eyes popped out of their heads. He then demonstrated this look of dumbfound shock. Sheepishly recognizing my own foibles in what he was describing, I decided to relax, drink some more of his beer, and just enjoy the show. After all, it’s so easy to inflate musicians to mythical proportions simply because they managed to pen some remarkable tunes in their lifetime, but in the end they’re just regular Janes and Joes like you and me.

And if there was any question about the Friedberger’s human-ness, one needed only to glance at maestro Matt at any point during the show, as the entire evening was clearly one giant indulgence in his personal quirks. Dainty classical arpeggios followed by wah-pedaled keyboard funk? Why not? Encased in his multi-keyboard laboratory, Matt occasionally slipped into full-on Igor mode – bulging, googly eyeballs; crooked, goofy smile; hunched shoulders. He would slip into this bizarre demeanor whenever something obviously pleased him immensely, like when Eleanor announced the band would be playing “Rehearsing My Choir,” and the crowd roared with approval, he was beside himself that anyone would be excited to hear anything off that album. Or when I demanded “More wah!” and he hungrily appplied his sneaker to the pedal, morphing “Navy Nurse” into a rubbery Herby Hancock headhunter expedition. Or when, at the end of the regular set and he asked the guy next to me what he was singing during “Clear Signal from Cairo,” because it clearly wasn’t the correct words, and the guy next me again shouted something incomprehensible, and then blurted, “My boyfriend and I met at a concert of yours four years ago!” Matt just nodded, flashed his Igor grin, and said, “Love conquers all,” before walking off stage. What a swell guy. (Note: these guys actually made it onto the official Fiery Furnaces website. How crazy is that?)

But it wasn’t until the encore when the line between performer and audience, rock star and normal person, began to really blur. Eleanor, who had been nervously sipping from her Heineken throughout the regular set, began flubbing on some lines. Some of the verses on “Cabaret of the Seven Devils” trailed off a little prematurely, and “Blueberry Boat,” played by request, distinctly featured a few more “Blah, blah, blahs” than I remember being on the record. And then, the coup de grace: Eleanor announced that they were going to play the final song of the evening, and they were taking requests. “You,” she said, pointing directly at me this time, “What should we play?” A million things raced through my head – do I request an obscure early song to demonstrate my love of the band? No, too geeky. Do I demand a rocker to tear the place down? No, I’ve had enough of those tonight. “Free Bird”? No, I can’t be that guy. Instead, I opted for the lightest, poppiest song that came to mind: the closer on Bitter Tea, “Benton Harbor Blues.” They looked unconvinced. “Benton Harbor Blues!” I grew insistent. It now had to be this song. I would be crushed if they didn’t play it. The song had just the right note of melancholy hopefulness that I wanted to leave with. And besides, I rationalized to myself, the song would go perfectly with the jazzy keyboard vibe of the whole night. “I grew up in Benton Harbor!” Sure, I lied a little, but I wasn’t going to be denied. This seemed to convince them. Matt shrugged, and started playing the opening notes. Eleanor stood behind the mic stand, tried to figure out the opening lines, and then just gave up. She walked over to me with the microphone and, laughing, admitted, “I forgot the words. You sing it.” I was floored. This is the moment every fan dreams of, right? Being asked to sing a song by your favorite band? I couldn’t do it. Besides, I forgot the words myself. All I could muster was “I wore the exact same clothes for five days,” which, when taken out of context, is kind of an awkward thing to shout out in public. Fuck, I thought, my encore request just crashed and burned in my face. Oh, devastation! Thankfully, the band recovered and jumped right into “Police Sweater Blood Vow,” which was probably my favorite song off of Bitter Tea anyway.

After the show I went up to Eleanor and made an offer of condolence about the whole incident. She apologized, I demurred, and we chatted politely about a few other topics before I headed home. It turns out she’s an entirely normal, approachable person. Gosh, I love Midwesterners!

On the way home I just tried to remember the lyrics to “Benton Harbor Blues”: “I went moping down by the bridge,” starts one verse. God damn, I thought, that would have made a terrible closer.

Setlist
Philadelphia Grand Jury
Navy Nurse
My Egyptian Grammar
Evergreen
Duplexes of the Dead
Automatic Husband
Ex-Guru
Black Hearted Boy
Bitter Tea
Right By Conquest
Rehearsing My Choir
Japanese Slippers
Widow City
Restorative Beer
Clear Signal from Cairo

Encore:
Single Again/Don’t Dance
Cabaret of the Seven Devils
Blueberry Boat
Benton Harbor Blues (Aborted!)
Police Sweater Blood Vows

-Posted by Todd