Mercury rising from the Catskills to Tolbooth
Like The Band 30 years before, it was out of the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York that Mercury Rev appeared in the late ‘90s with a landmark album.
Fittingly, there was a late sixties folk rock feel to much of the reworked material from Deserter’s Songs at the Tolbooth on Tuesday, April 24, shorn of its original symphonic embellishments and low-fi instrumental interludes.
Opening song ‘The Funny Bird’ set the tone with a haunting piano melody taking the place of the more familiar soaring orchestral synth arrangements.
Harmonica took over from the woodwinds on ‘Tonite it Shows’ and Garth Hudson’s saxophone on ‘Hudson Line.’
Sean ‘Grasshopper’ Mackowiack added atmospheric solo guitar lines throughout the evening, but most notably on ‘Holes’ which retained its memorable trumpet outro.
There was a brief foray into Deserter’s Songs’ predecessor ‘See You on the Other Side’ with a delightful reinterpretation of ‘Peaceful Night’ which fitted seamlessly into the set, owing a lot to the quieter moments of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde with its Hammond organ and plaintive harmonica.
And the surprise inclusion of a cover of the understated ‘Here’ by ‘90s indie rock greats Pavement wasn’t out of place.
‘Opus 40’ however went against the grain by morphing into psychedelic distortion, much to the audience’s rapture.
Mercury Rev were on the road with no rhythm section, but these songs nevertheless retained the power and momentum of the original album versions while creating new space for nuance and colour.
Singer Jonathan Donahue had told the audience the intention of the tour was to make the songs “small and vulnerable” again, “the way they first revealed themselves” during recording sessions in the early hours.
Akin to that fictional resident of the Catskills, Rip Van Winkle, referenced in the evening’s introduction, Mercury Rev had roused themselves 20 years on to rekindle the magic of their greatest work.