Concert Review: Patrick Watson and the Wooden Arms at The Bell House

All Photos: Jeremy Bold

It was one of those beautiful spring evenings, where being indoors feels like a travesty. The only thing keeping me from the fading sunlight was the promise of an incredible live show. Patrick Watson and the Wooden Arms delivered. The audience literally couldn't get enough of Watson and his circus act of musicians.

Watson is idiosyncratic to say the least. He seems to be receiving an outside energy at all times, struggling to contain it within his body and release it through his music. He rocks, sways and bobs his head, conducting the onstage musicians even when he is playing solo. His performance is visual as much as it is musical. Strobes and lighting from the floor of the stage emphasize the highs and lows of Watson's style. It felt like a depression era circus with a fun house and beautiful ladies riding plumed horses.

They opened in total darkness with "Fireweed", the strings and guitar solo drifting over the hushed audience. As the sound increased, so did the lighting, a sort of visual foreplay to the impending swell of the music. Watson's songwriting features a lot of slow build ups to cacophonous sounds, which cut back to delicate vocals. As a live audience member, watching these swells was a joy. Everyone on stage is building, adding layers and adjusting to each others sounds. It reminds me of the ocean, with calms between sets of waves.

He followed with "Beijing" which always feels like an opera, telling a story. In this case, the story was taking place under the graceful chandeliers of the Bell House. The sound was wonderfully complicated as it floated up to the wooden rafters. During "Traveling Salesman" Watson crooned into a megaphone as though he were a trumpeter, using a mute to create the "wah waaah waaaaaahhh" sound which we use in colloquial speech. For "Crickets" he made the entire audience hush because he swore he was hearing crickets. When we all stopped to silently listen, sure enough there were crickets (which turned out to be ventilation fans). It was an amusing lead into "Crickets" during which he sometimes chose not to use the mic, instead cupping his hands to his mouth. He also played a new song called "Sit Down Beside Me" which featured guitarist Simon Angell playing with a spoon.

When they played the last song, the audience was going wild, Watson came out and announced that they had a little something special and would be right back. He reemerged wearing a contraption sprouting stems topped with megaphones and bright LED lights like a crazy sea creature on his back. He and the band came to the middle of the audience and we all sang "Man Under The Sea". The drummer played the saw with a violin bow, and the guitarist stood on a folding chair. It felt like a summer camp sing-a-long on the last night before we all returned to our suburban homes, The Bell House's rafters and buffalo art emulating summer cabins in Maine and Vermont.

This did not quell the audience's desires to hear more, so the whole band returned to the stage and played a little improv piece from an audience suggestion entitled "Where are my Pyjamas?". It had a Radiohead-y sounding guitar line, and was truly a unique experience. Although Watson gets most of the attention, his band, Simon Angell, Robbie Kuster and Mishka Stein were wonderful. Watson introduced them and the strings many times throughout the night, in a self humbling and appreciative way. They were wonderful and deserve their own props for working with Watson to create his Time Burton-esque dreamland.

Doveman opened with delicate gentle indie-folk-jazz. I'm not quite sure how to categorize his music, but it was soft and fleeting, with lots of improv. I felt like I should have been in a speakeasy wearing a gown and holding a cigarette. It was completely lovely and set the tone for the Wooden Arms perfectly. Doveman front man Thomas Bartlett is a well known musician in his own right, playing with The National, Norah Jones and David Byrne.

Watson's Wooden Arms and Close to Paradise are available here. Doveman's The Conformist is available here.

xx The Elephant