The Sky Was All Purple
My Brightest Diamond @ Daniel Street - January 28th 2011
I expected Shara Worden to do a little capital-S singing tonight, and she didn’t disappoint; right out of the gate, she let loose on a fierce version of “Something of an End” (though don’t hold me to that being the actual song My Brightest Diamond opened with; you get the accurate reportage you pay for). While I wasn’t necessarily expecting Worden to work the multi-instrumental angle, it wasn’t much of a shock to see her flitting between guitar and piano and autoharp and ukulele and even thumb piano during My Brightest Diamond’s set. In case there are those that doubt all the press clippings that like to work this particular angle, it won’t take long to realize she’s as agile a musician as she is a vocalist.
No, the thing that surprised me most about MBD’s set tonight was Worden’s affably goofy charm. I showed up expecting a serious brooding batch of music, preferably light on the po-faced sincerity that sometimes crops up on the MBD albums. Instead, Worden worked the stage with a fair helping of humor and self-effacement; before playing a new song (which she explained, in a deadpan fashion, was a very important song about the birth of the universe), she idly strummed her ukulele while mimicking the low-humming feedback from her monitor. She closed out the set’s opening number by strutting across a raised section of the front stage while ripping into her guitar, and ended the set with a winsome sing-along encore. In between, she made a strong case for Coolest Mom Ever, at one point playing a song she wrote inspired by her 6-month old child, and immediately following that with a bit of pre-song story time. What started off as a seemingly innocent innocuous song intro (explaining the tune’s source of inspiration, George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind) turned into its own full-blown performance, with Worden making like the North Wind, waving her arms around while bellowing and howling. And then there was “Apples,” a track from MBD’s last album that turned from a shifty little groove thing (with thumb piano) into a full blown dance party, with Worden dragging and inviting audience members on stage (onto that aforementioned raised section) to cut a rug or two while the drummer and bass player did their thing. Plus there was a show-stopping Worden-only cover of Prince’s “How Come U Call Me Anymore,” featuring the classically-trained Worden letting it all hang out. (This recording from another show isn’t exactly of the highest fidelity, but you can still dig it.)
Not sure if this is the usual MO for MBD, but the band tonight was just a three-piece: guitar (or guitar-like thing), bass, and drums. This configuration obviously meant that tracks featuring string sections and multi-tracked Worden vocals appeared here it there Casual Friday best, a look that turned out to be very flattering. I’m fond of both MBD albums, but there’s a fussiness to the production and the arrangements (nevermind Worden’s vocals) that tends to sour me on them at times. If I’m going to give one of those albums a front-to-back listen, I have to be in the proper mood. This stripped-down live approach, and the added emphasis on the rhythm section, put a welcome foot in the ass of tracks like “To Pluto’s Moon” and “Golden Star,”among others. (“Freak Out,” in particular, comes off much better in this configuration than on the studio version.) If someone wanted to sponsor a Kickstarter project to get MBD in the studio to have Worden & friends rerecord some old album cuts as a power trio, I would gladly kick in a few bucks. Or maybe I can just do a quick search for some live sets, and bide my time until the new album comes out later this year.
