New York City's Town Hall, an ostentatious venue with filigrees of old-theatre finery -- plush seats covered in red velvet, ornate molding, and heavy curtains with accordion folds -- is nestled awkwardly amidst Time Square's tawdriness. While it seems the type of venue in which the Decemberists, a folksy collective with a keen interest in all things maritime, would never play, Colin Meloy took center stage during his solo tour with apparent ease. Perhaps his sense of comfort was derived from the evening's muses: on the table next to him were a sheep (Erick, "pronounced with a K"), a skull (Cheryl, whose presence was to "remind you of your ultimate demise"), and a ship (curiously named Maya Angelou; the night's only nod to the nautical themes of Meloy's primary band). With this trifecta in place, the Decemberists' frontman promised to make the evening feel like one spent around the campfire.
By starting his set with "Devil's Elbow," a somewhat obscure, chorus-less folk song from his college band, Tarkio, Meloy's promise seemed a tough one to fulfill. And when John Wesley Harding appeared onstage to accompany Meloy on two Shirley Collins' covers, stares from audience members were blank ones, not ones warmed-over with campfire wonder. John Wesley Harding; isn't that Bob Dylan album? Was "Barbara Allen" supposed to sound like jam-band fodder? Who was Shirley Collins, anyway? A rendition of "Kumbaya" almost seemed preferable.
Luckily, Her Majesty's "Los Angeles, I'm Yours," delivered on Meloy's pledge. Without percussion backing him, the singer prompted concertgoers to snap the beat for him. He also encouraged their singing by quieting his mellifluous croon during the song's high notes, allowing audience members' upper registers to do the work for him. With the crowd primed for participating, even Meloy's unreleased cuts drew audible reactions: "Baby Song," a lullaby about the approaching birth of his first child, resulted in resounding "awws," and "Shankhill Butchers," an eerie cautionary tale about minding your mother, wrought nervous laughter. When Meloy surprisingly and neatly segued from Castaway and Cutout's "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade" into the Smiths' "Ask," the audience delivered their most enthusiastic response of all.
The only weighty moment of the night came near the beginning, when Meloy half-lamented the Decemberists move from Kill Rock Stars to EMI-powerhouse, Capitol Records. The new deal, on the one hand, seemed a considerable achievement for such an idiosyncratic band. But for the indie-faithful, the announcement was a tragic one. Perhaps in response to this outcry, Meloy refrained from playing much material off Picaresque, the album that launched the Decemberists into major-label territory and created the affliction he deemed "sellout-itis." By the end of the night, though, no one cared about what label his band was on. When on the fourth and final song of the night's encore, "Bandit Queen," Meloy asked us to close our eyes, imagine a fire pit around which we were huddled with burros nuzzling our necks, it was clear the singer had turned the theatrical setting of Town Hall into an intimate one. Now, if only Meloy had supplied the marshmallows.
