Okkervil River

There's something about seeing bands from Austin play up here in Idaho that makes me very happy and also profoundly homesick. The Gourds? Sure, that's obvious. There are strong connections to my life in Texas and, really, to my development as a human being that go along with seeing that band play. But Okkervil River? I've seen them a handful of times, I've got a couple of their records, and while I do like them quite a bit, I wouldn't consider myself attached to them or their music in any meaningful way.

Still, seeing them this past Saturday night at the Neurolux had a strange effect on me. They put on an outstanding show, full of their hallmark energy and abandon and yelling, and the respectable-sized crowd responded with enthusiasm, staying with the band even through the quieter moments of their loud-quiet-loud roller coaster ride. They were into it. So were we.

The strange thing is how familiar it all sounded. I mean, I'm familiar with their work, but I mean this in a larger sense. Back when I wrote for the Austin Chronicle I interviewed Will Sheff for a SXSW edition of the paper. When I asked him about whether moving to Austin has made a difference to the music he makes, he replied that he'd be making the same music no matter where he lived. I was surprised at this then, and I think I attributed it more to him not wanting to credit the scene more than he or his band's inherent creativity. In hindsight, I think I was at least partly correct. There is something Austin about that band, something buried deep that surfaces as part of the murky characteristics of Mood or Tone or Aesthetic or something indefinable like that. It's in the way the keyboards and the lap steel fit together, or in the way the rest of the bandmembers sing all the songs whether they have mics or not, or in the narrative quality of the lyrics or the sense of unrehearsed style they all had. Note: This is a good thing. It is a measure not only of style but of quality.

And stranger than this recognition of roots or pedigree was the effect it had. When the show was over, I was sad. Not in the sense of not wanting a good thing to end, but in the sense of leaving a place that I love. Oddly enough I don't really even get this feeling from seeing the Gourds play. Maybe I'm too close to their music. Seeing Okkervil River was less a big event than just a good show, more a feeling of being transported to Austin to see any one of hundreds of bands that would give me this same feeling. When it ended, I was only beginning to recognize it. Then it was too late.

I don't know what this all means. Just another layer on my already complex and freaky relationship with Austin, TX, I suppose.

Dramatics aside, the show really was very good. If you get a chance to see these guys, take it. Whenever you have songs this good, a band this solid, and a level of passionate engagement this high, it's not something to be passed on lightly.