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Destroyer at Granada Poster
Destroyer Setlist
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“Twenty years ago, our first time in Lawrence, these pill-poppers let us sleep in the basement of a church that their parents owned, and I’ve had a really good feeling about Lawrence ever since then” – Dan Bejar
Canada’s Destroyer returned to downtown Lawrence, KS and the Granada Theater over the weekend, for an evocative and always interesting performance, in support of latest full-length, Have We Met (on Merge Records).
Opening support on this solidly strong bill was provided by Eleanor Friedberger, one half of indie duo Fiery Furnaces and an outright solo artist herself, rebounding with latest full-length, Rebound (on Frenchkiss Records).
The generous forty-minute set allowed for twelve songs, with Friedberger sharply dressed in gold lame polka-dotted top, dark slacks, and shimmering silver low-cut boots. Her solo set started on keyboard/sequencer (cheekily intro-ing with a looped sound collage featuring a Beatles ‘Eleanor Rigby’ snippet) then Friedberger picked up the guitar with second song, the new ‘Nice to Be Nowhere’ and a strummed staccato riff began 2015’s ‘He Didn’t Mention His Mother’.
‘Inn of the Seventh Ray’ was grounded with a dizzy harpsichord sound, and after radio hit, ‘Are We Good’, she recalled her last stop in town, a headlining show nearly scuttled by “hurricane winds” and severe flash-flooding, though a few devotees yelled they were there that night as well.
‘Stare at the Sun’ featured some of her most passionate lyrics, “when I'm with you, everything's treasure, I forget what it's like to be gone”, Rebound’’s ‘In Between Stars’ got teased with only its first verse (maybe a time limit thing), and the set ended with 2011’s promise of ‘I Won't Fall Apart on You Tonight’.
The secret of Vancouver band Destroyer’s current lineup is that it is much more than just singer-songwriter Dan Bejar and a bunch of hired hands-- it is, in fact, a very cohesive and compelling musical unit that plays like they’ve been together for years, even minus a brass section that he has brought along previous.
The new album, Have We Met as usual takes the eraser to the sonic wipe board of the band’s sound and starts anew with more personal lyrics and a sound akin to two decades ago, during the Y2K-era scare of the last millennium.
Bejar’s stage appearance involves a mic set into a thigh-high stand which a big-haired Bejar then grabs and shuffles about singing in a uniquely pronounced and somewhat theatrical building voice, to usually then crouch down at center stage to replace the mic on the stand and grab a drink from a couple nearby plastic cups.
The ninety-five minute set started strongly with the new album’s first two songs, ‘Crimson Tide’ and ‘Kinda Dark’ and 2011’s ‘Kaputt’ invited everyone to “Step out of your toga and into the ocean” before the new tunes returned with ‘It Just Doesn’t Happen’ and current radio hit, ‘Cue Synthesizer’, playing almost all of the latest release on this night.
Lyrical references jumped from The Smiths to Shakespeare in a single verse on ‘Cover from the Sun’ and fans loved the darkness of 2017’s ‘Tinseltown Swimming in Blood’. Like Friedberger, Bejar doesn’t speak much between songs, letting the music do the talking, which as mentioned, was crisply played all night- not flashy or solo-garnering, just perfectly interacting as a complete musical entity, as they should be.
The new album’s ending ‘foolssong’ cribs a Michael Franti/Spearhead line to help get its point across and Bejar and band went way back to 2006’s ‘Rubies’ to end the main set, very suitably singing, “I didn't want to go, but leave I must, as gratifying as this dust was”.
The encore started in the best possible way, with Eleanor Friedberger (literally) jumping from her merch booth to on stage for ‘Hell’ as Bejar stepped to side stage banging a tambourine and Friedberger countering the bleak song title singing, “Every time I try to look into your eyes, an angel flies by”.
Fans’ shouted requests were answered with ‘Canadian Lover/Falcon’s Escape’ and an extended instrumental end jam to the song, drifted unexpectedly into the end half of The Doors’ ‘L.A. Woman’, to the gleeful surprise of both audience and band, all smiling as the song blossomed its own organic life, to end the evening.
Have We Met?-- those witnessing that hadn’t before now happily have, and Destroyer and Eleanor Friedberger provided an entertaining and always-musically interesting evening, by what is so far the best concert double-bill of the year.
(click on any photo below to enlarge and see full image)
Remaining tour dates:
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Mar 2 Detroit, MI Deluxx Fluxx
Mar 4 Toronto, ON The Opera House Mar 5 Montreal, QC Théâtre Fairmount Mar 6 Cambridge, MA The Sinclair Music Hall Mar 7 Brooklyn, NY Brooklyn Steel Mar 8 Philadelphia, PA Underground Arts Mar 9 Washington, DC Black Cat Mar 12 Atlanta, GA Terminal West Mar 13 Nashville, TN Mercy Lounge Mar 14 St Louis, MO Blueberry Hill Duck Room Mar 15 Papillion, NE The Waiting Room Mar 16 Denver, CO Bluebird Theater Mar 17 Salt Lake City, UT The Urban Lounge Mar 19 Seattle, WA Neumos Mar 20 Vancouver, BC Vogue Theatre Apr 17 Rotterdam, NL Motel Mozaique Festival- day 2 |
Apr 18 Genk, Belgium Little Waves
Apr 19 Zürich, Switzerland Plaza Apr 21 Nuremberg, Germany Roter Salon Im Z-bau Apr 22 Prague, Czech Republic Divadlo Archa Apr 24 Berlin, Germany Bi Nuu Apr 26 Copenhagen, Denmark Pumpehuset Apr 28 Oslo, Norway BlÅ Apr 30 Amsterdam, NL Paradiso May 2 Schorndorf, Germany Club Manufaktur May 3 Borgerhout, Belgium TRIX May 4 Paris, France Café de la Danse May 5 London, UK Village Underground May 7 Leeds, UK Brudenell Social Club Jul 1 Lisbon, Portugal Lisboa Ao Vivo (LaV) Jul 2 Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain Vida Festival Aug 21 Lindsay, ON |
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Destroyer (with Eleanor Friedberger) |
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Destroyer at Granada Theater, Lawrence, KS (28 Feb 2020) |
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