The Decemberists, in The Hazards of Love, have created an incredible piece of work - it's for people who love reading beautifully-written stories, for those who love theater, and the opera, and for those who love to be wowed by talented musicians.
It's a concept album - a rock opera, if that's not too dated a description for a musical production. It tells the story of a fair maiden Margaret and her lover William, of his surrogate mother the Queen, and the evil Rake, of love, abduction, raging waters, rescue and...
Here's a link to the lyrics - you can read them as a story without hearing a note of music and become smitten. But then - listen.
We saw them last night - they did the entire album from beginning to end. What a show! They all played multiple instruments, the lighting was spectacular and they performed the story as they played and sang.
After The Hazards of Love they took a break and came back to delight the crowd with a handful of songs from other albums as well as a few new ones. Colin Meloy has such an engaging demeanor on stage - I am a card-carrying Decemberists fan for life.
La Commedia
14 years ago
Good lord, "concept album"? I haven't heard of one of those since Pink Floyd broke up...
ReplyDeleteThank you for the pointer. I shall see if I can score some of the music to sample.
I know, I know... but it's well worth checking out. Let me know what you think if you do, m'kay?
ReplyDeleteI love the album that preceded this, The Crane Wife, and plan to acquire everything they've put out since they began.