There are a lot of pieces to assemble toplay one of Bird’s songstape loops, layering, the regular use of glockenspieland other rarely used, tough-to-spell instruments. He merges them into albumtracks in clearly deliberate ways. It would be easy to hold up a recorded songas a template to follow. But the Andrew Bird who records albums is not the onewho takes the stage at his shows. If anything, each is a response to the other.
“As records are being created more andmore perfect, I think people are drawn to shows that are moreseat-of-the-pants,” Bird says.
He frames his concerts as a war againstapathy. Every time he tries to reproduce a highlight from another showtheperfect vocal inflection, the ideal riffhe is one step closer to complacency.Repetition, he reasons, is a comfortable way to remove all of the passion fromthe music.
“The worst thing that can happen is thatyou’re just putting your finger in the right place, that playing a song becomesphysical memory, and I really don’t want to let that happen,” Bird says.
Like ghosts, he believes, songs are toowispy to nail down.
There is a surprising amount of effortthat goes into ensuring his shows never get too polished. Bird goes to greatlengths not to get overly acclimated to physical environments. He shows uphours before sound check to sit in the audience, and connect himself to a newvenue.
“I feel like it has [gone wrong] thosetimes I’ve come in the back door, ran a sound check, collapsed until show time,and haven’t really connected with the space,” he says. “It seems like adisconnect can happen when you play 200-plus shows a year.”
Bird likes to keep his band, and himself,as nervous as possible. In every show, Bird and band try something for thefirst time. There will be a new cover, a new arrangement or a new verse to asong.
“You remind yourself that your own workis not that sacred,” he says, “and that what’s sacred is the actual moment andtrying to recreate every night the sense that you’re creating the song for thefirst time.”
Sometimes, it actually is a new song.“I’ve got maybe six or seven songs cooking that I’ll try at sound check withthe band that they might have just learned a couple of hours before,” Birdsays. Sometimes he’ll stop midway through a song, and ask the audience wherethe song should go next.
If the show seems unfinished, it isentirely intentional. It may be easy to play a song imperfectly, but it’s hardto be as dogmatic about imperfection as Andrew Bird.
AndrewBird performs two shows at the Pabst Theater this weekend, playing with a fullband and opener Dosh on Friday, Oct. 16, and playing solo with opener St. Vincent on Saturday, Oct. 17.
