Burnaby, British Columbia
To all musicians who charge over $50 a show: I hope you saw Bon Iver at Deer Lake Park, because that is how you put on a show worth that kind of money. "We're just going to play songs until the curfew," Justin Vernon casually said, and that they did with a solid hour-and-a-half show which included every Bon Iver song one could want to hear including a Bjork cover arranged around multi-instrumentalist Reginald Pace's beatboxing during the encore. Which Bjork song it was I wasn't sure, but they performed it as an ode to her having played Deer Lake Park exactly five years ago to the day.
Backed by an eight-person band, the live arrangements of Bon Iver's songs, which included a brass section and the largest saxophone I'd ever seen, at times made me feel as if I was seeing Broken Social Scene or a post-rock band as many of Bon Iver's songs broke like a dam, flooding the park with electric sound. The first kick of the drums rang through the park like a thunderclap, causing the people in front of me to physically recoil and jumpily "woo!" in surprise as if a draft had blown up their skirts. In fact, Bon Iver was the first time the speakers were so loud that I felt a tickle in my inner ear and a lump in my throat (having been an outdoor show, the sound had to project). Yet, the volume was never unbearable: everything sounded bold and clear, particularly the brass section. I'd never heard trumpets, trombones or saxes sound so ... deep - full - alive. Additionally, with Justin having urged the audience to "scream [their] asses off" during "The Wolves" because "no one can see you; you're not in a God-damned church!," it wasn't entirely the tender Bon Iver with which fans have fallen in love on record.
Clearest of all was Justin's voice. Every bit as rich as one would expect, I could hear people in the crowd gasp in utter awe at the things he did at the microphone, especially when he sang a cappella, slowly, without a whisper in the air from the audience, nearby traffic, birds, bugs or anything - just the total deafening silence of the audience and even Nature trying to hear Justin's voice at its purist. It was in that contrasting space between Justin's a cappella and the rest of the world's induced muteness that one realizes what one actually already knows, and that is just how fucking amazing Justin's voice truly is.
Honestly, try as I have, Bon Iver's only work I really like is For Emma, Forever Ago - and yes, I have heard his entire discography. But every one of his songs was incredible live. I never liked the electronic texturing on Bon Iver, Bon Iver, but even though Bon Iver employed some minor looping and other electronics, the songs from his self-titled sounded very organic; maybe it was due to the fact that I could see that humans were indeed bringing the music to life.
I tell ya, hearing "Flume," "Skinny Love," "Re: Stacks" (the only solo song of the night which Justin played on electric guitar) and "For Emma, Forever Ago" (the night's closer) - standing there in the third row, pretty much centre, so mesmerized, I could hardly do more than slowly and hypnotically sway back and forth, often with my eyes closed (I couldn't even sing along, I was so entranced) - those are the concert moments for which I live. They don't happen at every show, but when they do, there is nothing higher than that: that band - that performer - is the Ultimate - the Absolute. I'd never heard so many people shout "I LOVE YOU!!!" during a show (and this came from girls and guys), but Bon Iver fully deserved every such adulation of the night. Nor can I remember the last time I heard a crowd pop for literally every song with equal enthusiasm.
Click here for photos from Bon Iver live at Deer Lake Park.
