White Spider Stars: An Evening With Laura Veirs

I wish I could tell you who opened tonight's show. Alas, I didn't catch his name. He fingerpicked his guitar fast and said his words clearly, clever words that left an impression beyond a snicker or a chuckle. In his best song: the shepherd and his wife are in the farmhouse, hammered and high, devil-may-care. There's a commotion outside - to the shepherd's amazement a wolf carcass lies in the pasture, torn apart by the sheep. A funny thought, until the man thinks about the last time he fed the flock, and that it was he who deserved to be lying open in the grass. A gruesome tale indeed, although told in true folk fashion over sweet "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" guitar.


We got a seat in the front before Veirs came on, and I couldn't help but think of the campfire analogies. Her music is informed by nature, trees and bears and boulders and ourselves on the volcano's edge. She mentioned that this city didn't seem real, and it was clear when she played she was somewhere else. Not at all in a disinterested, affected way, but in a sweet and rapt gaze, a place she was comfortable in.


On only her second tour without her band, or "my boys" as she refers to them, Veirs plucked and whistled, strummed and hummed with a natural grace which was a treat on its own. Sometimes she was accompanied by a pleasantly tasteful, even moving accordion. During this man's solos it was strangely touching to watch her watching him as they played, something beautifully honest in her sweet strum and stare.


On some songs she used, to great effect, her loop pedal to create a chorus of Veirs which built and built only to fade, the real Laura knelt on the ground whispering the song into thin air. Perhaps this is what's most refreshing about Laura Veirs: her lack of self-consciousness and posturing, an earthiness in direct contrast to easily-hyped, designed images. I thought about last week's Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show, watching a band in a completely different state of detachment, a frustratingly smug air of indifference as opposed to a wondrous daydream.

It seemed appropriate when the show ended with Veirs again knelt over her pedal, fading the song as if out of a dream, hushing her ghosts back into their box.

Watch out for some real photos at smalld. At least I think that was her in the corner.

From Year of Meteors (buy):

Laura Veirs - Magnetized

Laura Veirs - Secret Someones

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Laura Veirs / Nonesuch Records

Enjoy!