Bon Iver in Dublin

On Wednesday, I took an afternoon bus to Dublin to see Bon Iver in Dublin.  The bus ride itself was shit.  A 60-year-old man and an 8-year-old child verbally abused each other for the entire 5 hour ride.  Shit.

The extended bus ride meant that I had to take a cab.  I don't like taking cabs.  Especially when, had the bus shown arrived on time, it wouldn't have been necessary.  The cab driver was a really good guy, though, as far as I could tell.  Had worked in London as a bar owner for years before moving back to Ireland with his wife and kids.  Seemed to understand exactly where I was at in the night and my life, and was entirely supportive of every endeavor.

All back story aside, it was a fantastic gig.  Not a perfect gig, but certainly fantastic.  If you've ever listened to Bon Iver's album For Emma, Forever Ago, I think it is difficult to deny the overwhelming sense of helplessness in unrequited, betrayed, downright fucked-over love.  It's a brilliant winter album, that aches, "I've got me and my blanket, and this sucks, and I wish you were here.  But you don't want to be."  It's an album that hurts.

Live, though, Justin Vernon and his band transform the thing.  This was captured nowhere more perfectly than in the song "Skinny Love."  It could serve as a thesis for the album, but live, certain subtle elements (I'm thinking specifically of the soft background percussion) became emphasized to a degree that evoked Kanye West tribal, "Love Lockdown" beats; primal, angry gunshot heartbreak.

The new songs were also very interesting.  Recent reviews have suggest that where For Emma, Forever Ago is a winter heartbreak album, the new EP Blood Bank is a sort of tribute to summer love.  I don't disagree with this assessment, but, at the same time, anyone who has listened to the album will agree that Justin Vernon is no Beach Boy.  While one song in particular seemed, quite simply, flat ("Beach Baby"), the others were fantastic.  The set opener, "The Woods," was equal parts Gillian Welch murder ballad and Fleet Foxes indie choir, utilizing the same four rustic lines, and slowly transforming them through vocal arrangement.  "Babys" evoked, strangely enough, 1970's Elton John.  That is, if, instead of being a coked-out Englishman, Elton John had been a California heroin addict.  I mean that in the best way possible.  Finally, the tune "Blood Bank."  As far as I can tell, this is the most commercial thing Bon Iver has done.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  It still retains some of the idiosyncratic song structure of other Bon Iver tunes, with a fascinatingly morbid setting (um, a blood bank).  At the same time, overdriven electric guitar and relatively predictable chordal structure dominate the arrangement.  This results in what, to me, came across as the most badass Goo Goo Dolls song ever.  And I mean that in the best way possible.

At the end of the night, a few tunes were just plain boring, while the majority of the show subtly reinvented an album and artist that I've come to love over the past year.