All I can say is that on Saturday I put in a little bit of overtime.  I got three posts up by the late afternoon and then made by way to the Gravity Lounge to catch both of the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy / the Anomoanon shows.  My day started around 6:30am on Saturday and I don’t think I made it back home until 3am on Sunday morning.  I’m still trying to put it all together but here’s what you missed if you didn’t make it to the shows.

There was a definite buzz in the air as I walked up to the Gravity just before 7pm.  It’s not very often that I’ve had to wait in line to get in the door but then again it’s not every day that Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy is in town for a back-to-back double bill.  We’ve said it before but it’s worth saying again.  A big thank you goes out to Bill Baldwin, the owner of Gravity Lounge, and Danny Shea, of Satellite Ballroom fame, for putting these two shows together.

Around 250 tickets were sold to both shows and from what I gathered both were sell outs.  I’ve seen a ton of shows at Gravity, but these were definitely the largest crowds I’ve ever been a part of there.  All the chairs and just about all of the tables were gone, a standing room only crowd stretched from the front of the house to the rear, and the stage was filled with significantly more amps, guitars, and gear.  The Gravity Lounge, at least on this night, felt more like a rock club, albeit one lined with shelves of books.

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Billed as Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (aka Will Oldham) with special guests the Anomoanon (led by Will’s brothers Ned and Paul Oldham), in truth it was just one big family affair as Will played keyboards, tambourine, and provided vocals with Anomoanon from the right side of the stage and then Anomoanon backed up the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy portion of the show with Will moving to the left side of the stage to play guitar and sing.  As I think about it now, in some ways each show was like seeing two shows in one.

Here’s the way each show broke down:

–Six songs performed by The Anomoanon (featuring Will Oldham on keyboards, vocals, tambourine)
–Six songs performed by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (backed by Anomoanon)

SET BREAK

–Three songs performed by the Brothers Oldham (featuring Ned and Paul on acoustic guitars and Will on electric, all three providing vocals, no other musicians on stage)
–Three songs from The Anomoanon (featuring Will as above)
–Three songs from Bonnie ‘Prince Billy’ (backed by Anomoanon and featuring Sarah White on vocals.  White also performed her own song “Fightin’ Words” with the full band backing her)
–Six more songs from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (backed by Anomoanon)

Keep in mind that I saw this happen twice.  The only portion of both shows which featured the same material was the three song set with Sarah White.  Otherwise each show was completely different from the other in terms of material performed.  I personally thought that adding Sarah White was the perfect choice for a female voice to accompany BPB and to hear her with Will Oldham on “You Want That Picture” from Lie Down in the Light was a definite highlight.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s song choices spanned the spectrum from older Palace Brothers material to a number of songs from his most recent album.  Among the highlights were the title track to Master and Everyone, “Nomadic Revery” and “Death to Everyone” from I See a Darkness, and the first show closing performance of “Ohio River Boat Song”. 

Admittingly, this was my first time hearing most, if not all, of Anomoanon’s material, but if you’re a fan of Will Oldham’s sound, then Anomoanon should be right up your alley.  And while both bands mine the mid-tempo musical landscape to find gems of dark beauty, the main difference between the two lies in Anomoanon’s desire to sew a deeper rock sound into their music that immediately reminded me of Neil Young and Crazy Horse.  I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the extraordinary version of Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter” that appeared in Anomoanon’s opening set during the second show.  Amazing!

If I had one complaint it would be that I would have loved to have heard more from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.  Even though the material was evenly split between the two bands, there were moments throughout where Ned seemed to be the dominant vocalist.  It’s a small complaint for sure, but given the rare opportunity to actually see Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy live, it would have been cool if there had been a couple of solo performances thrown into the mix with just Will and a guitar.

But really who am I to complain?  From the constantly changing performance sets to the ever-increasing level of animation displayed by Will Oldham as the night grew deeper, this was a special night to be remembered.  And while it made for an extremely long evening, I’m just glad I was there to see it all go down.

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