The Mynabirds, a band on Saddle Creek records – Bright Eyes’ home, is it still necessary to remind anyone? – has released two albums ‘What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood’ and ‘Generals’ produced by Richard Swift, currently a member of the Shins; with such a pedigree, the band had to be interesting, and they effectively delivered a fantastic show of folk-country-and-beyond inspired tunes, fronted by a beautiful and bold woman. Laura Burhenn – who has toured as part of Bright Eyes during the People’s Key tour in 2011 – has quite a presence on stage: Standing on a platform, wearing a sexy long-sleeves-knee-length white outfit, black tights and an animal-head fur hat, she looked like an audacious princess escaped from a folk tale.
The set was heavy on their latest effort, the politically charged ‘Generals’, whose title song is a bluesy call for revolt with lyrics like ‘I need a political job/In a blue collar town/So I can pay my rent/When the music is on/I get my best blood drawn/But I haven’t made a dollar yet’,… and a totally foot-tapping earworm melody which could make you raise your fist and follow her shout-out protest when she sang with conviction, ‘Calling all my Generals/My Daughters/My Revolutionists/We got strength in numbers/And they’re gon’ to pay for it’! It was aggressive and tuneful enough to capture anyone’s attention, even at 11:30 pm on a-middle-of-the-week night.
But the music was very varied, going from dark stomping blues waltz such as ‘Wolf Mother’, transforming the band in a cross between Lykke Li and Jack White, to danceable pop songs with a light 50s rock touch such as ‘Radiator Sister’ – an upbeat song about ‘getting pissed off and doing something about it’ as Burhenn put it – to the ethereal and quiet beauty turning to bombast-soaring voices of ‘Mightier than the Sword’. Laura Burhenn’s beautiful voice was deep and powerful, going strong above the music played by her four bandmates, and her smoky vocals reminded me of Cat Power in her quiet moments, but her style was that of woman clearly in possession of her talent. She was talking to the crowd a lot, making people laugh with ‘bad jokes’, totally at ease and in charge like… a general.
And may be the Mynabirds could plan a collaborate with Titus Andronicus – I am just dropping this name here because of their references to Albert Camus – as indie music for literate intellectuals! Effectively, how often do you hear a Jean-Paul Sartre’s quote in a song? ‘Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you’, sang Burhenn during the heavy-percussion-charged ‘Body of Work’.
The songs from their previous record had less of their call-for-arms spirit, and if ‘Give it Time’, with its languishing pedal-steel beginning, had this giant hook with her soaring voice dominating the scene helped by Nicole Childrey’s great backing vocals, other songs had this country-gospel dimension, lots of percussion or even some exotic rhythms.
The show was a raising voice against the ambient apathy and when they came back for an encore of three songs, they took some requests but also played the 60s poppy ‘Greatest Revenge’, during which Laura Burhenn sang with the sweetest voice, ‘Oh the American sheep oh the American sheep/ What happened to our cavalry now pork is fed to the fattest pig’,… oh I love this woman!
Setlist
Karma Debt
Wolf Mother
Let the Record Go
Give it Time
Radiator sister
Disaster
Mightier than the Sword
Buffalo Flower
Generals
Body of work
Disarm
Encore
Numbers don’t lie
LA Rain
Greatest Revenge