"Please don't defend a silver lining/ around the halo of what is already shining."

Earlier this summer, the Dirty Projectors played the first full set I watched at Bonnaroo. It was Friday afternoon at 1:30 and I was completely blown away. David Byrne joined them on stage for "Knotty Pine."

Upon my re-arrival a Toronto, I discovered that they were playing a show! At Lee's Palace! For $13.50!! I became excited. Overjoyed, even. DP are getting quite a lot of hype, so it was unlikely that they would ever play a venue as small as Lee's upon subsequent visits to Toronto. I was relieved to have ticket in hand.

And then the unthinkable happened: they got in a car accident, presumably on the way to Toronto. The show was immediately cancelled. Despite my disappointment, I was relieved to hear that noone was seriously hurt in the accident.

So I returned my tickets and spent the 13.50 (which was more like 15 after service charge) on some tall cans of Old Milwaukee to drown my sorrows. I went home and listened to Bitte Orca endlessly.

But Joy! The show was rescheduled! For the same price! at the same venue! Viciously cool move on the band's part. They could easily have filled somewhere bigger, like the Phoenix or even Danforth Music Hall. And charged more. In the wake of that glowing Pitchfork review, it seemed as if tickets were going to be in high demand. Oh, and they weren't on Ticketmaster, which is wicked, because Ticketmaster is the motherfucking devil.

Interestingly enough, most of the tickets were sold at the door. The place was fucking rammed, too. The only time I've seen Lee's so packed was for Deerhunter last year. (i.e. another band that got tons of buzz because of favourable Pitchfork reviews).

The Dirty Projectors are one of, if not the, tightest and most technically proficient bands in indie rock right now. (note: I hate the label indie rock. As if absence of big business financial support implies something about the music itself. In philosophy, it matters; aesthetically, it shouldn't.) The Talking Heads comparison was made early and often because of their "world" music influences (a band listens to music that isn't from North American or Europe? HOLY SHIT. STOP THE PRESSES!) and because of Dave Longstreth's position therein as "Musical Director." While David Byrne never listed himself under this title within his band, he clearly masterminded a similar position. As such, I'm interested to see if Longstreth moves in similar directions onstage; designing huge multimedia performance art pieces to accompany his music, for example. While it's not the most environmentally friendly thing to be doing, I feel like our society ceases to give a crap about the environment when it comes to the presentation of art. (Radiohead's LED light show should be the accepted norm, not some radical off-the-wall artfuck idea. )

In any case, they absolutely slayed the show. One of the largest details that I missed at their Bonnaroo set was how incredible Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian are at their instruments as well as with their voices. Longstreth might be the one composing the mindboggling glitched out Ali Farka Toure styled guitar lines, but Coffman plays many of them in unison with him or creates chords and harmonies through complex interplay. For a good portion of the set (actually, for all of the non-Bitte Orca songs) Deradoorian was rocking the bass like an absolute champion. She also switched between guitar and keys throughout the set (and some of her keyboard work is INTENSE! In many cases it's masked by the fact that she plays in unison with Longstreth as well, but the result is a crazily rounded out synthy multi-instrumental tone of an already crazy riff, or lick, if you will.)

And can we talk about the drumming for a second? Do we have to? Brian McComber absolutely comes to life in a live setting. On record, the drums seem very melded around the guitar and vocal melodies (with the exception of Stillness is the Move and a few others) but live it's quite the opposite. His drumming really colours in and accents the songs in a way that more functional, less artistic and adventurous drummers fall short of.

I love that they open with 'Two Doves."

Before the encore, Longstreth turned to his band and said, "This is the last show of the tour. It's been a long tour, and it wasn't always easy. I just wanted to say thank you, you guys are the best ever. I love you." What can you say about something like that? Dave Longstreth seems a very genuine character, and all I can say is that I'm glad he's making music. Then they played "Flourescent Half Dome" and "Knotty Pine." The audience kept cheering after they finished the encore, but Amber Coffman came out and sheepishly explained that they didn't have any more songs to play.

I find this both an admirable and peculiar end to the show. DP are certainly a band with enough technical ability to get on stage, jam for a few minutes and blow most bands out of the water. But that kind of idea, just to play for the sake of playing without careful crafting behind the ideas seems contrary to the band's aesthetic. I would have even been interested to see Longstreth play a song solo, but that seems out of place too. Because while the whole collective (if that's what indeed it is) started off as his project, his brainchild, the band has such a communal energy with a centre fixed firmly in their insanely elaborate pop songs that improvisation and "taking the spotlight," so to speak, falls by the wayside. The selflessness of the performance is emphasized when Coffman and Deradoorian sing "Stillness..." and "Two Doves," respectively. Despite the fact that they take the lead vocals by themselves, the placement of these songs alongside their post-choral vocal work based songs serves to highlight the strength of the band as a whole by focusing on individual members. But they never play by themselves.

It's really quite a beautiful thing to behold.