“You got a lot of new songs tonight; it’s a lot to take in,” said Adrianne Lenker during the encore of Big Thief’s sold-out performance at the Met in Philadelphia.
Big Thief’s excellent new album, Double Infinity, came out a little more than a month ago, but Lenker wasn’t referring to the five songs they played from it. She meant a handful of songs that have yet to be released, including one from guitarist Buck Meek.
For most bands, when they say, “Here’s a new one for you,” they mean something from the latest album. (And the set did include the aforementioned five from Double Infinity.) But Big Thief is not most bands, and one of the many ways they’re exceptional is their flexible, surprising setlists.
The evening began with one of those new ones, “Forgive The Dream,” a dirge-like meditation with a tender chorus that Lenker sang at the strained upper edge of her register, warbling a bit like the wonderful, idiosyncratic Mary Margaret O’Hara: “I can live in the world and forgive this world—everything.” That empathy in the face of disillusionment and/or frustration coursed through the evening’s songs.
The somber, slow pace continued with “Terminal Paradise” (from Lenker’s 2018 solo album, abysskiss), featuring a subtle, liquid guitar solo from Lenker. The song was beautiful, but the show initially lacked momentum, opening with two very restrained songs, followed by a long pause for guitar tuning, during which the rapt audience remained nearly silent. That bond with the crowd, a feedback loop of respect and support, is another of Big Thief’s exceptional qualities.
The opening notes of “Simulation Swarm” broke the tension, as the band—Lenker, Meek and drummer James Krivchenia, with guest bassist Joshua Crumbly—locked into a circular groove and Lenker turned up the volume with a fuzzed-out, leaping guitar solo.
From there, the vibe became gradually louder and noisier and more euphoric, with Double Infinity’s “Words” followed by a poppy, feedback-laced “Shark Smile” (from 2017’s Capacity) and a joyous, communal “Vampire Empire” (a Big Thief single as well as a Lenker solo song). Either of those last two crowd-pleasers could’ve been traditional encore songs.
This portion of the set highlighted the band’s wide-ranging talents: Over the course of six albums in less than 10 years, Big Thief has built an exceptional and wide-ranging body of work, and the rest of the set showcased this range. Words tumbled quickly through “Incomprehensible,” then the band stretched-out for two raw, loud songs of negation (“Not,” “No Fear”) and a lengthy “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You.” All of these songs had moments that recalled Neil Young & Crazy Horse in their questing and abrasive edginess, with Lenker and Meek pushing their guitar solos into moments of noisy feedback.
At these moments, Big Thief seemed more interested in making music together, creating as they go and directing their attention to each other rather than the audience. Lenker, Meek, Krivchenia and Crumbly project intimacy, at times toward each other, at times toward the audience, with the band members stationed close to one another on a sparse set. That they aborted “Little Things” halfway through—for reasons unclear—added to this unvarnished, intimate charm.
Double Infinity is, in a way, a reset album for the band, its first after the departure of founding bass player Max Oleartchik. To record the LP, they brought lots of collaborators into what had previously been an insular world as they recalibrated their identity. The latter section of the set prioritized brand-new songs and suggested the band’s ongoing evolution. They all bode well for Big Thief’s continued vitality.
After an impressive, fast-strummed new solo track from Meek to which Lenker couldn’t resist adding backing vocals (as she confessed afterward, adding “That song is so beautiful!”), they introduced the new “Muscle Memory,” which had a baroque folk gentleness, and “Trade Tomorrow,” a long story-song with a country folk strum and an inviting, wistful chorus (“I’d trade tomorrow for another thousand years”).
The three-song encore included another new one, perhaps the best of the night. “Beautiful World” followed a stirring, poetic “Double Infinity.” It’s a long, imagistic narrative with a political edge uncommon to Big Thief songs: “It’s a fucked-up world/Why must everything be conquered?” The speaker is traveling with her dog through a desert landscape, and her encounters include conversations with the border patrol and a sage old man on a bicycle. By the end of the song, the chorus has transformed to acknowledge that “it’s a beautiful world,” too. The sentiment aptly bookended opener “Forgive The Dream.”
“Beautiful World” was immediately striking: weighty, thoughtful and a whiplash contrast with “Spud Infinity,” the goofy hoedown that concluded the evening. Lenker hammed it up, bobbing her guitar up and down, urging the crowd to sing along to the “la de dah”s of the chorus, and dancing and clowning as each of her bandmates took solo turns.
Yes, the evening was “a lot to take in,” but not for the reasons Lenker feared. The new songs were immediately remarkable, so they didn’t seem a challenge to digest. But Big Thief does so many things so well that they offer a lot to process, a lot to respect and a lot to celebrate.
—Steve Klinge; photos by Justin Mayer/JMayerPhotography
