| Bishop Allen @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg | | Print | |
| Monday, 19 May 2008 21:10 | |||
Bishop Allen's show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg couldn't have been more of a homecoming. "We live here," singer Justin Rice said as the band took the stage. "And they built this venue for us."  (Rice had once performed at the Hall's previous incarnation, the divey North-Six, as part of Andrew Bujalski's 2005 film, Mutual Appreciation. It has been completely renovated since then.) Two songs into the set, the band performed "The Monitor," about the warehouse where the Civil War ironclad was constructed — now located just minutes away from the Music Hall of Williamsburg. As far as hometown shows go, Bishop Allen could've done a lot worse. The band mostly pulled songs from 2007's excellent album, The Broken String as well as from a yearlong project in 2006 wherein they released an EP every month. On the record, the songs are light and poppy, generally a breeze to listen through. The live show allowed for a few more rock and roll indulgences—muscular guitar parts here and there where pianos worked on the album—and, coupled with Rice's Beatles-style head-bopping and twitchy dancing, the band came across as having more amped-up energy than you'd guess from the sweetness of its sound. Then again, during an encore performance of the quiet "Butterfly Nets," the audience stood charmed in near-silence as a female vocalist's lilting voice wafted over it, proving that there's still plenty of sweetness to go around.
Words by Marisa LaScala. Photo by Aubrey Edwards.
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