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Concert Review: Jeremy Enigk @ The Great American Music Hall

Wednesday 8/30/06

Even under ordinary circumstance, we would hardly need cajoling or exceptional motivation to make it out to see Jeremy Enigk, as eminent an elder alterna-statesmen from the grand old 90s as there is. His recordings with Sunny Day Real Estate, one of the 90's better bands, have matured well with age, sounding better in retrospect with each passing year. And his first solo album, the minstrel-fare Return of the Frog Queen (1996), was deservedly much beloved, if be that love from a rather particular, quiet, waifish little corner of rock fandom.

So when our friend and colleague Josh Meyers somehow developed a collaborative association with Enigk, coproducing his new album and acting as keyboard player on a whirlwind tour that included this San Francisco date (as well as Europe and Lollapalooza), it attracted for Josh a nice personal coterie of fans and admirers to the Great American. Robyn and Matt came, and Jared and Lauren came, and Derek and Lauren too, and Jon and Ali came, and I came, and gosh, some others I didn't know, they all came, etc. And, for their trouble, they got a fine show.

Enigk has one of those voices that's just impossible to believe is real, that's so textured you have to believe it's at least 25% studio buffing and shining, the kind of voice that's actually restrained by studio recording. Nothing is lost in his translation to a live venue, his voice following every quasi-falsetto twist and cranny with impressive clarity. This is the voice of a fully-credentialed rock star, and Enigk fits the part. Not in his on-stage banter, which is awkward in an almost cute way, but in his "eccentric visionary" persona in his lyrics, and certainly in his forceful stage presence.

The fragile songs from Return of the Frog Queen sounded surprisingly apt in a stage rock setting, strengthened rather than crushed by a full five piece band. And to their credit, they knew which songs to highlite; I hate it when bands seem clueless as to which are their own best songs. With the album's first two (and best two) tracks, Abegail Anne and the title track, played prominently together near the beginning of the set, the crowd was buzzing and open to the new material.

The new songs sound good in places, questionable in others. The game Enigk always must play is to keep his hyper-emotive singing style from becoming bloated and overblown. He nailed it on Frog Queen, largely due to the just-right humble quality infused in the songs, in the production, in the ethos of the project. This quality is a flighty hit-or-miss affair in his more recent band recordings (The Fire Theft, late Sunny Day Real Estate), but there is no reason to expect its absence in a solo project...and especially not with the guiding hand of our tasteful friend Josh. Still, it's impossible to predict exactly which direction Enigk will shoot in next.

And for Josh, he got his rock-star night in front of friends and family.

When it came time for Enigk to move to the piano at the side of the stage, Josh was briefly called upon to take up Enigk's guitar. And as the band's only back-up singer, Josh's duties in that regard had to continue wherever they could...so, with an "oh, look, here's a mike" body language, for one shining song Josh took up the center stage position, singing with his eyes closed, playing guitar, to the delight of his friends. During the mid-song "breakdown", the rhythm section dropped out and Josh was left suddenly alone in the mix, matching vocal lines with the great Enigk. And as the song finished, it gradually stripped down until all that was left was Josh's chords, with Enigk looking back from the piano bench, over his shoulder, smiling/laughing at/with Josh. Then he raised his arm and said "Ladies and Gentlemen, Josh Meyers".

Surely Enigk was aware this was a home-town Glorious Return show for our friend, with his parents rumored to be sitting upstairs in the balcony, surely he consciously wanted to give Josh his due on this night. Or perhaps he walks across stage and hugs Josh at the end of every performance, I don't know. In any event, by the end of the evening Josh had got his money's worth, to be sure.

And what a superb end to the evening it was. The encore finished off the show with two stark, halting moments, both just Enigk himself, unaccompanied. Singing over a gently picked acoustic guitar, Enigk gave to the excited crowd the surely anticipated Explain, Frog Queen's most lilting lullaby, a showcase for all of his best songwriting qualities. Then, as show-stopper, a beautiful and riveting piano rendition of the old Sunny Day Real Estate tune, How it Feels to be Something On. With his foot on the pedal nearly the whole song, the chords sustained ad infinitum, adding a wholly successful haunting undertone. It was all so successful, in fact, that one marvelled at how seamless an adaptation it was from the crashing guitars and cymbal swells of the original. Or maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising; at this point, the music didn't matter. Enigk's vocals carried both the last two songs entirely and without difficulty, stepping on the instrumentation as mere platform. Both brought the house down.

A fine show from an old favorite, with fabulous musical moments, and with a special personal flavor mixed in. What more? We await Josh's (by god!) forthcoming album with deep interest.


post-script
Afterward, Enigk aknowledged the crowd, saying he was "blown away" by the response, with an hilarious implied sentiment of "Really? You all actually love Return of the Frog Queen that much? Really?". That's what I love most about seeing these mid-sized venue shows in San Francisco. There are enough kids here with quirky, esoteric taste in creative media content to fill (or at least swell) almost any show with genuine, dedicated fans. Many a band I've seen blow through town takes special pause to mention and praise this fact, showering us with much flattery. And then they berate us for not dancing.