I was lucky enough to catch one of my favorite bands three nights in a row this past week. Let me take this opportunity to first and foremost gloat, and secondly let all of you know what you missed.

The band was in Wilkes-Barre, PA for their show at Kings College, organized as part of the school's experience the arts program by Rob LaDuca. Many of you will know Rob as the President of NEARfest, but in his spare time, he is actually a chemistry professor at Kings. Previous shows he has arranged at the school include the California Guitar Trio and Par lindh Project. The main event was to take place Thursday night at the school's Chapel, but the real festivities were to begin Wednesday night.

The band were at the local NPR station, WVIA to record a radio session for future broadcast.  I was lucky enough to be able to sneak in and be a part of the two person audience. It was great seeing the band in a more informal setting, and getting an insight as to how they play together outside of the live atmosphere. Someone would stop the song for what would appear to be a minute thing to the casual listener, but the band is so familiar with their material. "Ok, stop. You came in a half beat late in bar 22"!! Wow. This 'personal concert' was cool, but didn't have much flow considering they would stop to perfect things. Still, an amazing experience.

          
Thursday saw the main event. After sound check throughout the day, the band went on around 8pm and after taking a moment of silence for the recent tragedies, played a beautiful and somber version of the Beach Boy's "Our Prayer".  Unfortunately after this introspective opener, their usual high energy start to a show, "Petrophonics" took a few minuets to get going.  Then it was prime Birdsongs time. They played a variety of material from most their albums but stuck mostly with material from Petrophonics; the title track, "Ptoccata II", "One Hundred Cycles", "The Insidious Revenge of Ultime Thule" and the live debut of "Nevergreen". "Coco Boudakian" and "Slo-Boy" were featured from Faultline, as well as other pieces from throughout their career. They also reworked their old excerpts from "The Rite of Spring" to amazing results. Their music was a great compliment to the beautiful atmosphere of the chapel and formed a great combination. The performances were all well executed and played with the typical energy and fun atmosphere of any Birdsongs gig. Erik even played a little solo piece while waiting for the others to tune.

Friday night saw me returning home for all of five minutes to pick up Greg before we headed down to Manhattan to catch the 11pm set. Originally just another club date, the show was turned into a benefit in the wake of the recent turmoil in NYC. The suggested cover charge went as a donation to help the families of Firefighters. The band didn't get on till after midnight due to delays with the opening band. The band played a set quite similar to the night before. It was obvious they were tired, and it showed a bit. "Nevergreen" and "The Rite of Spring" suffered the most, yet nothing that deterred from audience enjoyment. The real highlight of this show though, was their version of Terry Riley's "In C" - a beautiful, meditative minimalist piece. It was only ten minutes, but I could have listened for another hour. An interesting note; Greg brought along some of his NYU brethren who all enjoyed the show, despite not usually having an interest in this type of music. This is a group that will appeal to any open-minded music fans.

Well, you could imagine how excited I was these three days. One of my favorite bands delivers again. Needless to say, if they play anywhere around you, go see them!!

- Mike Prete [September 2001]