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Last Thursday night, I trekked out to northeast Washington D.C. to watch David Bazan perform in the living room of a row house for a crowd of 30 kids. It was easily one of the most intimate, powerful performances I’ve witnessed in a long time. Bazan might no longer identify himself as a Christian but it’s hard to avoid religious metaphors when describing his solo shows: he still delivers his songs like sermons, belting them out with his eyes squeezed shut and his head cast back toward the heavens. Though he focused mainly on songs from his latest solo release, the excellent and deeply personal Curse Your Branches, he reached as far back as Pedro the Lion’s 2002 album Control, introducing that record’s penultimate track, “Priests and Paramedics” by lamenting the fact that Americans don’t spend enough time contemplating their own mortality (“It’s a very healthy endeavor”). And in classic Bazan style, he found plenty of time for between song banter, discussing politics, the ethics of music downloading and Radiohead’s In Rainbows with the crowd throughout the evening (he even managed to turn in a surprisingly solid cover of “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”). Unfortunately, Bazan’s house show tour has now concluded, though he’ll be embarking on a full-band tour starting next month. For those who missed the house shows, we’ve embedded a recorded webcast of Bazan’s Brooklyn solo performance below (courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan).
