Okkervil River - Live Review

Before Okkervil River’s set at The Picador in Iowa City Saturday night, the band (including opener Damien Jurado) set up their wares at a make-shift merchandise area towards the back of the club. The merch table was actually a bar where you normally place your beer if there wasn’t a bunch of people trying to sell their shit.
So amid the copies of vinyl copies of The Stage Names, a drunken patron and her equally drunk boyfriend became deep in conversation with, of all people, the sound guy for Okkervil River. She raised her thin frame up on to the bar precariously close to open cups of draft beer and limited edition vinyl; I knew immediately what was going to happen. For some reason, the sound guy didn’t ponder the disastrous results that could occur and he soon became “the guy that didn’t ask the drunk chick to get down from the bar before she spilled beer on the records.” When she finally knocked over her draft, it was while explaining to the sound guy that Iowa had the “largest per capita population” of something.
I think I’ve been around conversations like that, so I’m fairly sure the population being discussed was “cows.”
Welcome to Iowa!
There were a lot more drunk people at the Okkervil River show, mainly boys, and most them looked like English majors. These well-read kids know a good pensmith when they hear one, and based on the number of thrift store cardigans in attendance, there’s a little hero worship going on too. They began screaming out songtitles as their literary mentor climbed on stage from the nearly sold out crowd and then matched him, word for word, throughout the entire performance, often challenging the lead singer in terms of sheer volume.
Will took off his glasses and called the room to order.
“Let’s start with our best foot forward.” He said, launching the band’s set with the awesome “Plus Ones.”
The band, looking like studiously coiffed and bearded Ragstock models, often utilized more than one instrument during the songs and they played musical chairs on The Picador’s relatively small stage just to complete the right arrangements.
Sheff relayed a story about the venue’s infamously precarious backstage stairs which nearly “killed” him during a load out a few years ago along with another story from that same night which had him dropping trou during the band’s set for reasons never fully explained. Sheff kept his pants up throughout the performance on Saturday, and he sported a fetching Johnny Marr-just-slept-in looking haircut which was a hit among the ladies up front.
No wonder the guys with dates kept a tight grip on their ladies: this Will Sheff dude could totally steal some hearts if he wasn’t such a pussy.
They’ve upgrade The Picador since Okkervil River last played there: the back stairs aren’t as treacherous and you can cram another few people in without the fire marshal being called. The Okkervil River audience has upgraded in numbers as well; they’re a band on the verge of moving beyond their “midlevel” status (“Unless It Kicks”) and reaching recognition much larger than this 150 capacity room could handle in the future. It’s nice to be able to see a band with such larger expectations in a venue like this, particularly how they interact with such an intimate audience, knowing that the show tomorrow is in a room that holds five times more people.
They reacted with an intensity that is both heartfelt and loose: every heavy-handing expression that Sheff made seemed sincere and drunk enough while every solo and cold ending the band delivered seemed perfectly road-tested. The intimacy may have prompted a few more bottles of Grain Belt between them and, as a result, a few more sloppy fills, but it was perfect for a high-humidity room that was heavily infiltrated by people with lots of Grain Belt already in them too.
They used a set list that will become perfected in the next few weeks before it starts to lose that unpredictable element. There’s still a sense that Will and the band could caterwaul out of control at any moment, but after a few more weeks of seeing how much impact The Stage Names has made, you’ll probably notice the theatrics and posturing come to an end, replaced completely by repetitive professionalism.
But today, they’re still the beer drinking buddies, those hopelessly romantic bookworms that front a band on the verge of becoming something much bigger.

Setlist:

Plus Ones
Black
Lady Liberty
Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe
Unless It Kicks
A Hand To Take Hold At The Scene
Red
Song Of Our So Called Friend
For Real
All The Latest Toughs
No Key No Plan
Girl In Port
Westfall
Encore:
Don’t Know Much
The President’s Dead
Last Love Song For Now