Scattered Birds

Before the band even took the stage I knew it was going to be at least a fun show. One of the band members was butterflying around the room thanking everyone who showed up, and just being all around bubbly, I know this, 'cause she gave me a hug too.

Scattered Birds took the stage a few minutes after nine PM and took the Acadia for a ride. They opened with a very simple little line. The guitarist strummed a single note while the drummer kept a steady rhythm, the vocalists rumbling bass came in shortly thereafter to take us away.

It was an odd bit of a blessing that the sound was so bad in this place, as, I feel, it allowed us to drift away with the whole music of it without being forced into some kind of picture that vocals usually do. That is to say, that I couldn't understand a word that was being said for the first few songs.

The first songs brought me back to a much simpler time in my life, when my biggest worry was whether or not the girl three rows in front of me liked me not. It reminded me of my first few encounters with love, and how I slowly, painfully, learned the gravity of that word.

The second song featured a female vocalist, and her eerie alto chords shook my spines in ways that I thought only a full choir could. My friends and I used to say that such a voice scraped the bottom of the barrel of my being.

Throughout the whole performance one of the members switched between playing an accordion, a melodica, and a child's piano. I'm still up in the air about some of the accordion choices, but the toy piano, Schoenhut (Mark Well The Name), sent spikes down in the music. It cemented song of the songs, as if to say “You're listening, right? Good, 'cause now it gets good.” The high pitched 'ping ping' would normally be called annoying as your three-year-old cousin pounds away at the keys, but the choice to include such a shrill instrument in certain songs about memories, and love really brought the emotions home.

The fourth song they played this evening moved me in ways that I wouldn't normally be able to explain, but luckily I drink, and so certain avenues are opened to my mind, mostly freedom of words, this song was like raindrops on my soul. It pattered away, and I found my heart following along with the rhythm, in a most disconcerting sort of way.

I could keep going on about how good these guys were, but I'll stop after this closing statement:

Scattered walked on stage a new band, never before heard, they took the stage with a virgin set-list, and left us needing a cigarette.

Scattered Birds left the stage to hoots and hollers and chants of “Encore” to the drummers response of “We'd play an Encore, if we had one.” Get one, you guys need it.

-Skot/Scott