Live: Grizzly Bear at the Wiltern

No less than Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor recently confessed that the blog-beatified Brooklyn quartet Grizzly Bear makes him feel “irrelevant.” Indeed, the band’s very existence represents a quasi-platonic ideal of the prevailing indie-rock trends of this decade.

Whereas industrial, grunge, and post-grunge’s acid-washed abrasion consumed the Clinton years, the patient pop that Grizzly Bear unveiled at the Wiltern on Friday night takes its cues from freak-folk, Phil Spector-produced girl groups, the supernal harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash, and the Beach Boys, the smoggy prog-pop of mid-period Pink Floyd, and the ambient atmospherics of their peers on independent label Warp Records. Top it off with a filigree of orchestral chamber music and you have the hottest band of the skinny jeans generation. (Grizzly Bear played another sold-out show Saturday night at the Troubadour).

Often derided for over-ponderous arrangements, the band goes to great lengths at its stage show to reconcile its penchant for preciousness. If the operative cliche for the band members' ooh-and-ah harmonies is "transcendent," the more accurate tag is "transcendentalism." The extent of their popularity is a testament to the sheer radiance of their vocal interplay and slow -- but smart -- song craft. Indeed, the impressionistic, arboreal beauty of songs like “Foreground” and “Dory” seemed tailor-made for solo sojourns to a cabin in Concord, Mass. (frontman Ed Droste was raised in nearby Cambridge, after all).

Commencing with the gentle melodies of“Southern Point” and “Cheerleader,” from their most recent and lavishly lauded “Vecktamist,” the evening started languorously, with some members of the audience muttering doubts about whether the cavernous Art Deco-style Wiltern was the right fit for the band’s porcelain pop. The 2,300-capacity theater has notoriously drowned groups that traffic in the gentle and genteel, with Droste even acknowledging to the crowd that this was one of the bigger indoor venues the group had played.

Indeed, midway through the third song, “Lullabye,” the crowd was in danger of falling asleep. Yet then the band detonated into a deafening coda, and an accompanying light show left an ocular and aural impression of a thousand splinters of gorgeous crystal color.

With the set list evenly split between “Vecktamist” and its predecessor, “Yellow House,” the entire night was like that -- their music alternating between pleasantly lulling and deceptively explosive. Banter between band and crowd was scant, with Droste delivering the occasional quick quip and thank you, and fellow lead, Daniel Rossen, invoking the Lakers and his local roots.

But songs sometimes castigated for lacking muscle never felt anything less than fully fleshed out, with the band layering harpsichords, clarinet and flutes over achingly beautiful harmonies, heart-palpitating reverb, and drummer Christopher Bear’s deceptively powerful locomotion. With its levitating Vince Guaraldi piano line, “Two Weeks” seemed as sweet and delicious as a Snoopy Sno-Cone.

The big sky guitars and breathtaking cirrus harmonies of “While You Wait for the Others” seemed to go on forever, and judging from the crowd's response, most hoped that they would. “Knife” not only got under everyone’s skin, but also embedded itself in the audience's DNA.

By the end of the evening, any questions pertaining to Grizzy Bear's “it band” ascendancy seemed moot. After a performance like that, Reznor isn’t the only one who should worry about relevancy.

-- Jeff Weiss

Photo: Grizzly Bear. Credit: Lane Coder

Comments

[KRM]

With all due respect, the reviewer is/was high. At no point was the "crowd in danger of falling asleep." From the second the band took the stage the crowd was rapt and wrapped up in the show. I've been attending concerts for 37 years, and I have never heard group vocals as inventive and beguiling as at the Wiltern Friday night. During the 2nd or 3rd song I realized my mouth was agape as a result of the vocalese, and looked around to see I was not alone. The bar has been raised for American bands. The Harmony Hen has kicked the Fleet Foxes rightly out of her house (them fellers need some focus and actual tunes other than Mykonos), and Grizzly Bear rules the roost.

[Linda Barrett]

Hey KRM, if we're throwing stones at writers today, let me toss a few pebbles your way in regards to Fleet Foxes. Just because you're all hot and bothered over Grizzly Bear (who I saw put on a fine performance at the Wiltern a couple of years ago opening for Feist) is no excuse to take a swipe at a very good band like FF. Those guys are great and put on a fantastic show.

Maybe you just need to loosen up--it sounds like you could benefit from getting a little "high."

[Helbie]

The Author said it was one of the best shows of the year on his blog but here he had to "tone it down" a bit I guess. Regardless they are an incredible live band. ONe of the best