This show was memorable almost as much for the audience as it was for the music. The Roundhouse was perhaps two-thirds full for a show that The Low Anthem’s singer Ben Knox Miller said was “the biggest gig of their career” (adding: “And I’ve never called it a ‘career’ before”), but those who were there had clearly come to see the band rather than catch up on gossip, because the audience’s attention was absolute, their silence total; I can scarcely recall a gig where the crowd’s concentration was so complete.
The objects of their attention were a band from Providence, Rhode Island who have been growing steadily in popularity since they were formed five years ago, but who are still something of a niche attraction. Defiantly uncategorisable, The Low Anthem play music that’s a little bit folk, a little bit country and a little bit indie rock; it brings to mind the slow, gentle high-register beauty of Radar Brothers, the lyrical acuity of Leonard Cohen and the quirky solo material of Mark Hollis (it’s a woodwind thing). On stage at the Roundhouse there were four of them, three chaps and a woman; between them they played a bewildering multitude of instruments – clarinet, trumpets, harmonium, banjo (played at one point with a bow), upright bass, electric bass, guitars, plus a saw, which Miller, in his loose, rumpled checked shirt, looked as if he had just fetched from his garage – to create a sound that was organic, warm, rootsy and unmistakably American, but which entirely transcended the cheesy sentimentality that afflicts so much of that country’s so-called country music.
Occasionally, they strapped on electric guitars and actually rocked out, but the results were pretty unimpressive
Opening with the title track from this year’s Smart Flesh album, they spent the show swapping instruments effortlessly (I think the drummer is actually a better double bassist than he is a drummer), with Jocie Adams in particular showing extraordinary versatility (trumpet, clarinet, bass, crotales and keyboards were among her repertoire). Oh, and they could all sing beautifully, with the closeness of their harmonies putting to shame the somewhat predictable arrangements of those Fleet Foxes. Ben Knox Miller’s clear, wide-ranging voice, meanwhile, was at its best in falsetto mode.
Occasionally, and unexpectedly, they strapped on electric guitars and actually rocked out, but I have to say that the results were pretty unimpressive: they just seemed to be acting out some cathartic need to make some noise and bang stuff, rather than making real rock music; it was crude meat-and-potatoes stuff, with “Boeing 737” the only one of the “noisy” songs to raise a smidgen of interest, with its soaring chords. Also, they’re a naturally diffident bunch, and to see them suddenly transformed into swaggering, gurning indie kids was a bit undignified.
No, sireee: for me the best songs were the chamber-folk tunes such as “To Ohio”, with its wistful and evocative lyrics. Or the moments such as the one when all four band members clustered around the microphone to sing, with minimal accompaniment, the song that’s perhaps their best-known tune, “Charlie Darwin” (from their 2008 Oh My God, Charlie Darwin album). Exquisite harmonies, and (sorry to keep banging on about this, but it really impressed me) total silence from the crowd.
And at the end of this absorbing show, the audience’s attentiveness was rewarded during a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the Wire”, for which the band were joined on stage by support acts William Elliott Whitmore and Simon Felice. Suddenly Ben Knox Miller turned the microphone towards the crowd and gestured for them to sing along; they needed some encouragement, but slowly a beautiful rich sound emerged. It might sound a bit hokey in print, but really, it was a lovely way to end a night of rich and memorable music.
Watch The Low Anthem perform "To Ohio"