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Rating: We see them silhouetted against the orange sky typical of nights in metropolitan suburbs: the hangar that houses the Estragon and a circus, side by side. We enter the former without imagining that, for the evening, it will at times take on the appearance of the latter.
The only Italian date of the Decemberists kicks off around a quarter to eleven: the audience is quite numerous, you can hear American being spoken in more than a few clusters. Before the entrance of the six from Portland, a voice-over gives some instructions to those present: the first says to shake hands with your neighbor, the second invites you to describe yourself in ten seconds (too bad the presentations overlap and no one understands a thing), the third urges to welcome the band. They enter as six, then, to the roar: Colin Meloy wears an odd white jacket over jeans, which makes him vaguely resemble a hotel barman after his shift, with those slightly nerdy glasses and his forehead covered by an office-worker hairstyle; Chris Funk (guitars, banjo, violin, and more) looks like an overweight banker; Jenny Conlee (keyboards, Hammond, accordion) the slightly manic woman who plays the organ in churches; John Moen (drums) is the absurd cross between an Amish and a hippie; Nate Query (bass, double bass) is elegant and sober; Lisa Molinaro (violin, xylophone, vocals) is the well-behaved girl who just graduated from the conservatory. Average age: 35-40 years. They start off a bit stiff, almost didactically: they kick off with "The Crane Wife 3" (the opening of the latest album), and follow it without ceremony with the polymorphic "The Island / Come And See / The Landlord's Daughter / You'll Not Feel The Drowning", which also follows the succession of the album. All of this, along with the fact that the two tracks are performed exactly as on the album, down to the smallest detail, creates a moment of awed terror. But it's a mastery, just a bit too calligraphic, to show that technically the Decemberists know what they're doing indeed: kudos.
The rest is pure fun: Meloy loosens up and starts spouting nonsense, commenting here and there on the cries of delirium coming from indistinct fans; the album order is broken by the insertion of two pieces from "Picaresque" ("We Both Go Down Together" and "The Engine Driver"); people sing over Meloy's nasal but rarely rough voice; they visibly start having fun on stage. The most expressive and ridiculous faces come from Conlee, although the most lunatic seems to be Moen. Following them on stage isn't difficult, they don't move much, even if they sometimes swap positions: Moen on keyboards, Molinaro on the banjo, Funk on the violin. The latter showcases an impressive array of instruments, sometimes definitely improbable, like a crank guitar used for the base riff of "Sons And Daughters" (a hurdy-gurdy? other suggestions?). During the fabulous noir of "Shankill Butchers" only Meloy and Conlee remain on stage, while in "Yankee Bayonet" Meloy duets sweetly with Molinaro. The highlight, after the more rousing rhythms of "Billy Liar" and "O Valencia!", comes in the tail of a sparkling "16 Military Wives" - without mentioning how current the words of the chorus could sound on the day of Vicenza ("Because America can and America can't say no, and America does if America says it's so"). This happens: Meloy divides the audience into two groups, forcing them to open a corridor in the middle. He then invites the two sides to glare at each other and shake their fists, and launches a competition on which of the two will scream louder the "na na na na na na na na" that closes the piece mimicking TV chatter. He directs the groups with his arm: first one then the other, at an ever more dizzying pace, until the two choirs overlap, the piece starts again in great form, and the two groups merge back together.
Similar involvement in "Sons and Daughters", which closes the concert with the audience chorusing. The return to the stage is in the name of sweetness ("Red Right Ankle", with only Meloy on stage, and "Clementine"). For the delirious finale, the Decemberists choose "The Chimbley Sweep": halfway through the song, Meloy leaves the stage and starts hopping around the venue. Occasionally he disappears from sight, then reappears a meter away, bouncing like a demented kangaroo. What you don't expect. He runs up and down the stage, always in his barman outfit, without sweating. Then he puts each of his five companions to sleep with a magical gesture, making them collapse to the floor, and forces the entire audience to crouch and stay silent. We comply. The show serves to prepare the transition where Conlee plays a widow: she rises, accordion at her neck, and goes into falsetto, Meloy-chimneysweep responds, the other members awaken (except Funk), the music resumes at a whirlwind pace, we rise again shouting, and everything ends in glory with Meloy sitting on the chubby Funk, who acts as a wonderful scapegoat.
When we leave the sky is still orange and the circus next to the Estragon is asleep. It doesn't matter to find that our car was opened, and a cellphone and GPS stolen. That the world was full of jackasses was well known; the surprising thing is how the Decemberists managed for at least an hour and a half to make us completely forget that.
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