Photo Credit: NPR
I think I may have been one of the few attending The Low Anthem’s show last week at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue who were not already convinced of their overarching supremacy. Despite my adoration of the oft-compared Fleet Foxes, I had always been of the (erroneous) mindset that The Low Anthem were “pretty ok.” I was wrong, and now I repent.
After an impressive opening performance by BOBBY, the foursome opened the show as they harmonized circled around the mic as if it were a campfire. The entire show could have been taken as a musical traipse across America, with timeless folk music sung along the way. The group huddled around the mic intermittently, reverent and graceful, as the respectful yet captivated crowd collectively held their breath; at other times the audience whistled and applauded while the band caroused as if at a country ho-down.
Throughout the performance, they displayed the kind of versatile multi-instrumentalism that I will probably never see again, quickly and effortlessly trading instruments, including the clarinet, fiddle, banjo, organ, and some type of horn. (The man next to me whispered, “Is that a sousaphone?”)
The first five songs were from their newest album, Smart Flesh, which was released just the Tuesday prior, and included “Matter of Time,” which frontman Ben Knox Miller described as “the raciest, most irresponsible love song you’ll ever hear.” He quipped that another song, so new that it is still untitled, was about “how women don’t smell like they used to.”
But the highlight of the show, for me, was when they played “This God Damn House,” a song written by first opener Dan Lefkowitz. Miller told us to turn on our cell phones at the end of the song and call whomever was sitting next to us on speaker phone. He assured us, “It’s okay.” The phones chirped sadly and angrily, paralleling the chaotic mood of the song’s narrator, whose love had left him despite her promise to be “back by three, I hope you’re still there.”
Overall, the performance was a spectacular celebration of Americana that was somehow both very intimate yet deserving of even more coverage than NPR’s live streaming. I am glad that I saw them for the first time in a place of worship, so that I could fully recognize the error of my ways and atone for my mistakes. Their enveloping voices assured me that it’s okay.
