Bon Iver Kicks Off Tour in Mesa, Arizona: Recap, Photos + Setlist
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The post Bon Iver Kicks Off Tour in Mesa, Arizona: Recap, Photos + Setlist appeared first on Consequence.
To paraphrase Amy Adams in Talladega Nights: Justin Vernon is not a talker. Justin Vernon is a singer.
Standing off to the left side of the Mesa Amphitheater stage, baseball cap twisted backward like he just got tailored at the Fred Durst Warehouse for Classy Bros, the Bon Iver frontman crooned and warbled soulfully throughout the opening night of his U.S. tour. The two-hour set was light on banter, but when Vernon did talk to the crowd between songs, he made it count.
“I can’t tell you what it feels like to play up here for you all,” Vernon said after singing “Jelmore.” The enthusiasm of Vernon and his Bon Iver bandmates (Sean Carey, Mike Lewis, Jenn Wasner, Matt McCaughan, and Andy Fitzpatrick) was palpable, and mirrored by the energy of the crowd. A standing-room only outdoor venue, the sloped grassy steps of the amphitheater were jammed with people eager to have a night out after the long concert limbo of the pandemic. The amount of cell phones hoisted in the air far outnumbered the handful of masks floating around in the crowd.
Bon Iver, photo by Tanner Johnson
Taking the stage at 7:45 following a rousing opening set by Dijon, Bon Iver kicked off the night with a rendition of “22 (over s∞∞n)” that you could feel in your chest. Between the blaring sax and the rhythm lashing at our chests like a wrestler’s hard slap, the 22, A Million cut was foreshadowing as to how the night would unfold.
So much of Bon Iver’s music on record has an airy, disembodied quality — Vernon’s limber baritone filtered through a labyrinth of synthesizers, samples, sequencers, and Auto-Tune to produce uncanny vocals that sound like what a bot would create if you forced it to listen to the Anthology of American Folk Music for 1,000 hours and then asked it to cut an album. On records, Bon Iver’s music sounds like it’s trying to escape material reality; on stage, the music has flesh, weight, gravity.
The six members of the band were separated on islands — drums, mics, piano, bass, guitars, and keys stationed behind bent geometric structures that looked like Klaus Nomi bowties. A grid of stage lights overhead sprayed an array of colorful lights throughout the set, like an alien ship trying to tractor beam them aboard. The bowties and grid did almost all the heavy lifting, theatrically-speaking: the bowties glowed with bright neon colors (accenting their performance of “We” with pulsing aquamarine-colored light), while the grid lit up the wisps of smoke onstage.
These little touches gave numbers like “10 d E AT hb RE as T” an extra layer of menace; the band generating dissonant and crackling tones while obscured in a cloud of purple smoke.
The set leans heavy on i,i and 22, A Million, though some of the most invigorating moments came from Vernon & Co. digging into their older material. Introducing “Blindsided” as “an old one,” Vernon sang the For Emma, Forever Ago cut in his naked baritone, while bathed in blue light. The sudden sonic shift from playing “715 – CRΣΣKS” and “Heavenly Father” to something so unadorned and raw was jarring in a good way — a palate cleanser before the band brought the noise with a version of “Perth” that built to a cacophonous squall of squealing guitars and pummeling drums.
Bon Iver, photo by Tanner Johnson
One of the bigger surprises was hearing how “666 ʇ” sounds like a Chic song live — the song’s already strong pop qualities got turned up to 11. Vernon even managed to loosen up in a little in the banter department later on in the evening, as he introduced the rest of his band and they cracked jokes about “snowbirds” coming back to live in the state while it was still cool outside (someone on the Bon Iver team clearly knows how to work an Arizona crowd — nothing gets a cheap pop out of us faster than shit-talking snowbirds).
Continuing the local thread, Vernon also shouted out an AZ nonprofit organization, the Arizona Coalition To End Sexual and Domestic Violence, which is participating in Vernon’s 2 A Billion campaign. “Those who hurt hurt,” Vernon said, talking about the need to break the cycle of abuse and possibly unintentionally echoing his own lyrics on “00000 Million”: “It’s harmed, it harmed me, it’ll harm me.”
The set’s two hours flew by in a haze of neon, smoke, and ghostly spotlights. The band sounded full and crisp, mercifully spared the tech issues that often plague outdoor venues in Arizona. The night air was cool, the sky clear, the grass under our feet soft and yielding — perfect conditions to be transported by Vernon’s cybernetic angel voice. By the time Bon Iver brought things to a close with stirring performances of “Blood Bank” and “PDLIF,” we were practically floating on the grass.
Bon Iver, photo by Tanner Johnson
Bon Iver next plays the Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Greenway in Austin, Texas on Friday, April 1st; tickets for that show, and for the rest of tour, are available via Ticketmaster.
Setlist:
22 (over s∞∞n)
iMi
We
Jelmore
U (Man Like)
715 – CREEKS
10 d E A T h b R E a s T
Heavenly Father
Blindsided
Perth
666 ʇ
Faith
Marion
Towers
33 “GOD”
8 (circle)
Sh’Diah
____45_____
Holocene
Naeem
Encore:
Blood Bank
PDLIF
RABi
Bon Iver Kicks Off Tour in Mesa, Arizona: Recap, Photos + Setlist
Ashley Naftule
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