DeVotchka tops itself in Chicago
May 9, 2008, at the Vic Theatre
By Genevieve Diesing
Published: May 11th, 2008 | 11:25pm
With a voice like an instrument, the melodic crooning of DeVotchKa’s frontman Nick Urata is enough to immediately capture a listener’s attention. With a fluid range up there with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Muse’s Matt Bellamy, one tends to tune in to his earnest wails before fully realizing the rich sounds colliding behind them.
It doesn’t help that the Denver-based quartet’s dazzling music, with its almost indistinguishable eastern European sound, is full of tragedy, heartbreak, and the kind of emotional fodder that spotlights Urata’s heart-on-his-sleeve delivery. Yet this band offers more than love songs intermingled with its trademark Mariachi, folk, punk, and rock twists — it possesses a thrilling element that doesn’t fully unfold until seeing them in concert.
This was the case on May 9, 2008, when, on the heels of its sixth album, A Mad and Faithful Telling (Anti-), the group plunged into the new record’s rhythmic “Head Honcho,” featuring a standup bass. As the songs followed, the group sampled the theremin, accordion, violin, trumpet, piano, guitars, and sousaphone. Instruments on the album that might linger in the background through a stereo or computer were as un-ignorable in person as Urata’s voice. Lights flashed from the stage and belly dancers swiveled behind curtains, but the practical orchestra that had gathered onstage remained the biggest entertainment.
When the lights dimmed and Urata began to sing “The Clockwise Witness” with his face tilted up into the crowd, it sounded as if he was singing to each of us, individually. “If you win the raaaat race/If you come in fiiiiirst place, a rat is all you’ll be,” he cooed. Every trill sent shrieks of delight and applause through the entranced crowd. Dancing couples studded the seated balcony as the evening’s mood transitioned from energetic to startlingly romantic.
Audience members who were expecting an encore had no idea what they were in for when the band returned onstage not alone, but with the belly dancing Slavic Sisters, who had performed in shadow earlier in the night. The sisters, decked out in sequined leotards, shimmied up rope-like scarves that hung from the ceiling and proceeded to perform a jaw-dropping series of aerial acrobatics. They performed in unison as they dangled from their ankles and shook the scarves so they billowed out in spirals.
DeVotchKa’s following is picking up rapid speed, especially after its contribution to the soundtrack for 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine. Yet no matter how charming its sound is over the speaker, this group falls into the relatively slim file of performers who aren’t just better live, but that's how they’re meant to be seen.
Issue #35
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