The past year has seen quite a transformation for the artistic trajectories of indie folk staple Fleet Foxes and experimental indie rock group Amen Dunes. For Fleet Foxes, the release of their third album Crack-Up (2017) marked a shift from perfectly lush jangle towards a patient intensity. For Amen Dunes, their fifth LP Freedom (2018) expanded their meditative looseness into more propulsive grooves. Both groups have made any attempt to set definitive boundaries for indie folk difficult, and with their exciting embrace of genre-bending, their live shows exemplify how truly beneficial that growth has been.
Essential to every show is its time and place, and the open air of Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on 4/20 sets up great expectations. Rest assured, audience and performers alike seemed to be on the same page, and the night was smokey and blissful. Early in their set, Amen Dunes frontman Damon McMahon paid tribute to Bay Area weed enthusiasm through a cover of Jerry Garcia’s “To Lay Me Down,” which sounded perfectly in place despite McMahon saying he had just learned the song in the dressing room. Bathed in blue light and stage fog, Amen Dunes rolled through new songs from Freedom with a dreamy momentum, and the smoke geysers from the growing crowd exemplified the spellbinding warmth of the music.
In the eclectic spirit of Freedom, Amen Dunes delivered a performance rich in opposing elements. McMahon’s unique vocal delivery rode the line between pained and euphoric, and the band drove the performance forward with easy-going grooves that became cathartic as each song progressed to its climax. With the projected lyric “when things go black I got you” (from “Believe”) serving as the band’s plain-font backdrop, McMahon’s dancing in-place was a visual highlight, both slightly awkward and joyously engaging. When McMahon announced that “Skipping School” would be their last song for the night, I was shocked at how soon their set had come to pass. Luckily that closing song was the most torrentially fulfilling of the night, and left the crowd excited for what would be an lengthy 22 song set from Fleet Foxes.
Opening the set with dramatic beauty, the horn quartet The Westerlies delivered golden brass warmth with their intro “A Nearer Sun,” which then burst into Crack-Up opener “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar.” After the deservedly bold entrance, it only took three more songs until the packed Greek Theatre grew further entranced by sing-along classic “White Winter Hymnal”— perhaps the best known from their self-titled debut. By following with “Ragged Wood” and “Your Protector,” the band established that the night would embrace early favorites, ultimately performing 8 of the 11 songs from Fleet Foxes (2008).
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That isn’t to say that the band was stuck in their past, as they readily embraced the new, looser style of Crack-Up, even in older favorites. The winding patience exemplified on Crack-Up seemed to manifest particularly in two ways. One was the instrumental density heard through heavier dynamics on already mystifying gems, such as Helplessness Blues (2011) instrumental “The Cascades.” The second was the slight suspension of satisfying melodic resolutions, primarily employed through frontman/singer Robin Pecknold’s exceptionally subtle vocal delivery.
Even if it’s cliché to describe a voice as “soothing” or “angelic,” I believe it’s wholly justified for Pecknold’s, given the pure pleasure emanating every time his voice graces into a melodic climax. Notably, after tension steadily built through several verses in their debut’s “He Doesn’t Know Why,” the soaring refrain of “there’s nothing I can do, there’s nothing I can say” felt somehow both empowering and crushing. Vocal growth was heard in the performance of Helplessness Blues’ “The Shrine / An Argument,” in which the rising peak in “sunlight over me no matter what I do,” sounded controlled and patient rather than the spirited match-strike of the studio version.
As the set continued with trademarked rich harmonies and impassioned performance from the entire band, songs from Sun Giant (2008) and all three of their studio records kept the energy varied. Crack-up tracks alone exemplified the diversity, with contributions such as jazz wash ”Mearcstapa” and storming “Third of May / Ōdaigahara.” As a palate cleanser to the sweeping musical interplay, the lone stillness of their debut’s “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song,” in which low lighting and starry projections preserved the calm, helped ensure that the night was constantly captivating. Early in their set, Pecknold reciprocated the appreciation, complimenting, “This is the most beautiful theatre in the most beautiful part of the country,” before joking soon after that they probably didn’t really need to bring their smoke machines.
Treating the audience further in the encore, Pecknold performed solo for the sweet and gentle Fleet Foxes tracks “Meadowlarks” and “Oliver James,” the former of which hadn’t been performed in nearly a decade and was dedicated to a fan who had recently undergone brain surgery. The surefire title track “Helplessness Blues” closed the night masterfully, with its themes of higher power exemplified beautifully by the band’s expansive sound and emotional subtly. The slide guitar’s closing riff was especially affecting, feeling aptly unrestricted and bittersweet.
The night throughout was endlessly pleasurable and mellow. In fact, the only audience yell I could hear the entire night was after a song ended; once the clapping died down, they shouted, “play it again!” For once I actually agreed— I really wouldn’t mind experiencing the whole show again.
Written by Dylan Medlock
Photos by Olivia Song