live: lost in the trees, midtown dickens

08Oct10

I’m not really sure what else there is for me to say about Lost in the Trees — I’ve already professed my love for this band many, many times. Their latest record, All Alone in an Empty House is one of my favorites of the year, which is what brought me to the Bell House last night to see them for a third time in the last four months. Again, there’s not a whole lot that hasn’t been said already (emotional, sometimes heart-wrenching folk music with a classical slant, big sounds, lots of people on stage), although it should be noted that near the end of the set, the band’s normally soft-spoken frontman Ari Picker pleaded, “Don’t make me hate myself after this” before breaking into a rowdy cover of Misfits’ “Skulls.” Picker shouted, “I want your skull!!!” while the rest of the band members jumped up and down, and openers Midtown Dickens started a pseudo mosh pit. (Also, this wasn’t the first live Misfits cover I have witnessed in the last month, the first being Superchunk a few weeks ago.) It was kind of awesome, especially because right afterward, the group did their usual, really lovely and quiet routine of jumping down onto the floor for an acoustic rendition of “Time Taunts Me” with the crowd singing along.

The aforementioned Midtown Dickens, who, like LITT, hail from North Carolina, put on a set of country-folk songs that were as much fun to watch as to hear. The four members of the band all switched instruments after pretty much every song — three different people sat at the drumset in just the first three songs. Instruments that were played: acoustic guitar, string bass, trombone, trumpet, banjo, drums, shakers, mandolin, dobro, melodica, accordion, clarinet, harmonica, singing saw, and spoons. And despite having had their clothes and laptops stolen in Philly the night before, they looked like they were having a blast since they were in such good company. They joined Lost in the Trees for their last song, a soulful, countrified rendition of “Love On My Side” from Empty House, with the fitting lyrics, “I’ve got love songs/ I’ve got songs that make you cry/ I’ve got all the things a man could need/ I’ve got to see life with two eyes/ Yes I’ve got all this love on my side.”

Lost in the Trees: