Andrew Bird was willing to be a lot sillier at Webster Hall last night, throwing up his arms clumsily in dramatic gestures and making playful pauses in some of the stylized performances. Characteristic of him, he does it all with a straight face, even when he brought out the sock monkey someone made for him. He held the figure in his hands and took the time to show off his clothing (pin stripe suit), especially the socks, as well as the violin he carries on his back. After this the monkey sat in front of one of the gramaphone amps for the rest of the night.

Photos after the jump.

In comparison to the show at Bowery Ballroom and Union Hall, also with Martin Dosh and Jeremy Ylvisaker, this one felt a lot more polished (ps. they all wore ties). There were still a few new experiments, like an interlude that had some distortion on his violin and an extended intro for one of the songs. Most were from Armchair Apocrypha, including “Dark Matter,” “Simple X,” “Plasticities,” “Fiery Crash,” and a notably strong performance of “Armchair” (but no “Scythian Empire”). Saying that spring reminds him of it, however, he also played “Masterfade” with slight modifications.

Perhaps picking up from the Coachella webcast, there was a lot of demand for “Fake Palindromes” for the encore. However, he returned with Bob Dylan’s “Oh Sister” which, at least where I was, created some confusion (“I don’t think I know this one”). Then he said he was tired of playing all the instruments and asked the audience for help on the final song, “Tables and Chairs.”

This time La Blogotheque has taken Andrew Bird to Montmartre. Quite a few bystanders in these take-away shows (what fun!), and lots of yellow sky and silhouettes. First one is “Weather Systems” and second “Spare-Ohs”.
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Okay, it’s been an entire week since the “secret show” at Union Hall, but the Brooklyn Music Lovers Wanting Their Art Pure was nowhere as severe as this Gawker post makes it sound- there was an assertive keeping-the-music-pure request by the same Lou Dobbs prompter, however, and this one said, “Play more small shows in New York!” to which the whole room applauded and Bird shrugged obediently after finishing to sling his guitar: “Okay.” There was also a spinning, two-faced gramaphone type of a thing, which as it turns out is a gramaphone amp that a man in Chicago makes. Someone asked what that was for, and Bird said it was to throw around the sounds of his violin. Someone asked if there was a pet name for it, Bird welcomed suggestions: one I heard, and thought pretty good, was “Spinderella”.

Bird and Martin Dosh were hanging out by the door when I got there, by the merch table, this merch table happening to feature, in addition to an assortment of t-shirts, a whole 180 gm vinyl for $15, which left me with no excuse to not get it (Other Music has it for $13.99 + shipping, InSound for $14.99 + shipping). Inside it features the back of a bird’s head on the right and the back of Bird’s head on the left, and maybe, maybe, the CD does the same but the vinyl smells better. Anyway, it is a fine healthy-looking record with a nice weight.

Also, going by Gawker and other Andrew Bird Union Hall reviews, it seems the word “hipster” is being cluelessly thrown around these days, at what I consider an increasingly alarming rate! Even if there were hipsters there, what is the joy in repeatedly mentioning the obvious except to condescend? Gawker quotes its source: “Last night [H]ipsters pressed Bird to explain how CNN anchor Lou Dobb’s made it into one of his new songs…” I was standing right next to the guy who brought up Dobbs, and neither his clothes nor his hair prompted anything worth mentioning.

And now that the truth is out, here are some more photos I managed to salvage from the dark depths of Union Hall!, apologies to the guy next to me who suffered from my use of flash: