Chipped purple walls and a golden chandelier greet concertgoers as they enter the Riviera Theatre in uptown Chicago. The antiquated décor complements the old-fashioned splendor that is found in the music of Oregon natives, The Decemberists. Before the main act performs, Laura Veirs and the Hall of Flames, also based out of Portland, Oregon, board the stage.
Veirs, wearing black-rimmed glasses with hair in braided pigtails, seems like the girl one sees playing her acoustic guitar in a field of daisies. Instead, she is singing to an audience full of anxious, bandana-clad, scowl-faced teenagers. The Hall of Flames, her band, appear to be in their own world the entire time, but they fail to emit any flames.
The crowd below grows hostile waiting for the lights to come back on, throwing dirty looks in every direction as those who got the lucky front or second row reel their late, and mostly wasted, friends through the sea of plaid-clad fans. But as the glow of blue lights is thrown over the stage, the focus is turned to Colin Meloy, the lead vocalist and songwriter of The Decemberists. The first half of the set consists of their latest album, The Hazards of Love. Meloy sounds exactly as he does on the albums: His voice is sweet and soft and his sideburns also live up to the hype, reaching to the bottom of his jaw.
The first few songs transition from peaceful melodies to pounding rock, causing the audience to switch from swaying, to thrusting their bodies forward in sync with the powerful guitars, to clapping their hands to the beat. When “The Rake Song” begins, Meloy seems equally as elated as the bopping crowd when everyone eagerly helps him out by singing “all right, all right, all right” at the end of each verse.
After The Hazards of Love set, the band takes an intermission and returns to perform a selection of older songs, including “July, July,” a song from their debut album, Castaways and Cutouts, as well as crowd-pleaser “O Valencia!“ The first encore ends with the intense crescendo of “The Crane Wife 1 & 2.” After this, Meloy removes his guitar, its strap covered in playful red stripes and blue stars, and thanks the crowd for coming.
Meloy returns alone on the stage minutes later with “Save Yourself,” a song from his previous band, Tarkio. The next song, ”Sons and Daughters” from The Crane Wife is the finale. It is not until mid-song, when Meloy guarantees that the impending refrain will stay with us through the night and be there in the morning “making [us] eggs,” that the force starts to appear.
Meloy instructs us to chant “here all the bombs fade away” and, as each line is repeated, the volume increases. Meloy motions for the upper level to rise and slowly each person in the filled balcony stands up, belting out the refrain. It goes on for what seems like minutes, causing the previously grimacing fans to smile ear to ear from the power of the collective refrain. Though I didn’t wake up the next morning with a freshly made omelet as Meloy had promised, he was right about one thing: Here all the bombs fade away.