Adam and Tiffy

I have a very excellent wife who surprised me with tickets to see The Decemberists at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We had nice seats on the balcony with a great view of the stage, but away from the press of the milling crowd below. Note that I didn’t write rabble. We’re all rabble. This was a stop on their “A Short Fazed Hovel” tour and we were not disappointed. It was off to a good start when I heard Echo & the Bunnymen playing on the sound system as filler between the opening and main acts. (Sorry, Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3. We were running a little behind. I did gape at Peter Buck in the lobby as we were rushing in.) We sat in front of superfans who helped us whenever the vocals got drowned out by balance issues by singing out all the verses.

The first set was made up of almost all the songs from their newest album, “The Hazards of Love,” which is a folk tale told in instrumentals, peppy Baroque pop, and thundering rock. The stage was supplemented by the normal quintet to include Becky Stark (from Lavender Diamond) and Shara Worden (from My Brightest Diamond) in the roles of Margaret and The Queen, respectively. Special props to the roadie who, ninja-like, swapped out instruments between songs. Five sets of drums being pounded during “The Rake” is something to see.

I’m surely a bad concert attendee. I tweeted, checked lyrics, and researched folk tales during this show.

The jackets came off for set number two, which consisted of tracks from previous albums, including “July, July” and “O Valencia.” Colin Meloy is an entertaining frontman:

• He had the attendees in the pit vote for either keeping or removing the chairs. To his disappointment, they elected to keep them. There was a lot of standing afterwards, though. He probably shamed everyone. He did try out one of the chairs later, though.
• He talked the transformation of his worst song ever, “Dracula’s Daughter,” with a (his words) douchey cord progression, into “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. You probably had to be there.
• Finally, he and Chris Funk jumped down into the audience and had two women play their guitars while they circulated among the crowd. After climbing back up on the stage, Colin tapped his watch when his guitar took some time to make its way back to him.

It’s was a great show. If they’re coming to your town, see it.