Bad Plus So Good

The Carleton Concert Hall was jammed - a few seats short of SRO, but no doubt a sellout - for the Bad Plus show last night, and the boys didn't disappoint, playing a long set that featured new and old, soft and loud, slow and fast, originals and covers. Ethan Iverson, Reid Anderson, and Dave King were tight throughout, and the show really highlighted the interplay between Anderson on the bass and King on the drums.

The concert opened with a short but entertaining set by Forró for All, a six-piece band, led by New Yorker Rob Curto, that played forró, a genre of dance music from northeastern Brazil. The music, which you can sample on the website, was propulsive and fun, featuring a talented singer whose voice was often lost in the mix, two percussionists who used the usual kit plus triangles and an interesting Brazilian instrument halfway between a tambourine and a snare-drum head, and Curto's amazing accordion playing. He was spectacularly fast and precise, the true leader of the band. 

The Bad Plus came on quietly, opening with a new song called "People Like You" by Reid Anderson. Like many of Anderson's compositions, the song started slowly but, in patented TBP fashion, built to a big climax and then faded back away. It was a good way to kick off the show, and a good segue to the second tune, "Blue Candy," a Dave King song that focused initially on his heavy drumming. and Anderson's thrumming on the bass. With Iverson playing a simple piano figure, the song acquired a tension that did not so much break as dissipate into dissonance created by King scratching his cymbal with a drumstick.

After these two great new songs, the band launched into one of its greats, "Big Eater," off These Are the Vistas. Iverson rejuvenated the song with a new piano line, one which drew the song to a tumultuous conclusion quite different from the two preceding songs' ends. After that high point, the band continued with "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," their meditative or even tragic version of the Tears for Fears song. The tune pivoted on the misfit between Iverson's sure restatement of the melody on the piano and King's quicker drumming, then ended with a beautiful bass line.

With one of the obligatory covers out of the way, the band played two new Iverson compositions. "Who's He?" featured a wondrous piano part and, at the end, a big bass drum solo which lent the song the feel of "Physical Cities," the best song on the new album. The second Iverson song, "Old Money," was, he claimed, set in Duluth - a town from which apparently no members of the audience came, eliciting a bemused, "Okay then" from Iverson. The song itself was a study in tempo changes and offered each player a spot in the foreground. Iverson played some marvelous notes at the right end of the keyboard, and then Anderson did some truly incredible stuff with his bass. King's smashmouth drumming is best in concentrated doses, but I could listen to Anderson play all night. 

The seventh song was another King tune, a new one called "My Friend Metatron," about an evil-fighting archangel. Or robot, judging by the thudding rhythm provided by Anderson and especially the grinning King. Iverson played a strange but interesting piano line that seemed predicated on stutters and staccato. With more polish, all three of these new songs (and the two at the start of the set) will be great on the next TBP album.

After that, the band switched gears and played five straight songs from the new album. Anderson's "Giant" started with a phenomenal bass part that seemed to go as deep as the instrument could possibly allow. Anderson's playing was wonderfully prominent throughout, but Iverson's careful keyboard work and King's more subtle drumming propelled everyone to the top of the song, where the muscular playing was barely kept in control. It was a beautiful display of Anderson's composing and playing skills.

"Giant" seemed like the high point of the concert, and afterwards the group recovered with some less challenging fare. The next song, "1980 World Champion," is the latest in King's songs about a hard-working ski jumper named Jimmy Carter.  It's a good song, fun to see played, just like the next song, the band's cover of David Bowie's "Life on Mars." Their fine rendition which imbued the song with great uneasiness and ended with the drums threatening to crash through.

This perfectly prefigured the last song of the regular set, Anderson's masterpiece "Physical Cities," which was immediately obvious as the real climax of the evening. The trio expertly exploited the tune's cyclical structure, using Iverson's climbing figure to create great tension before finding cacophonous release in a series of enormous drum-bass breaks that required insanely tight playing between Anderson and King. "Physical Cities" is a great album track, and it was stupendous live. What can verge on merely repetitive when coming out of the stereo is energizing and searching when flowing off the stage. The demolition-site finish was perfect for both the song and the concert. (The obligatory encore was "Tom Sawyer," a decent rock song that is a decent jazz song but not nearly so strong as "Physical Cities" or the other new tunes.)

All in all, it was an excellent time. Kudos to Northfield's ArtOrg for arranging it, and to the band for playing a hell of a good show.