With a roar, Grizzly Bear tames crowd
There’s a tricky moment when Grizzly Bear strikes up Four Cypresses to kick of the first gig of its twonight New Zealand Festival residency at Wellington Opera House.
Its sound, huge and terrifying, slams into our heads like a wall of rock, muddied and rough – not at all like the echoing psych-folk rock we’ve packed out this place for.
It’s as if the sound engineer was unprepared for just how loud five Brooklyn, New York hipsters can get with such a pared-back drumkit, some loop pedals and a couple of guitars.
But then, like the calm after a hillside slip, those guitars separate from Daniel Rossen’s tremulous voice, the synths clarify, the drums equalise ... and we’re soaring.
Grizzly Bear has a reputation for craftsmanship, for curating each sound, painting with the band member’s instruments and voices to create a harmonious whole – the Thomas Tallis’ of folkrock.
It’s a reputation the Americans more than live up, turning the city’s gilt-trimmed Opera House into a cathedral of sound last weekend.
Indeed, this was the perfect setting for Ed Droste’s archangel vocals; they fairly lance through the rowdy Wellington crowd like the grace of God through Saint Teresa. When he raises his voice on the hymn-like Foreground, the hair on my arms stand straight up.
Combined with the voices of Rossen, Christopher Bear and Chris Taylor for the jaunty OnA Neck, On A Spit, it’s positively mesmeric. Even the poppy, Beach Boys-esque jangle of Two Weeks has a sacred vibe to it.
While the band doesn’t forget any classics, it is recent release Painted Ruins that is being showcased. The album’s hollow, played-in-a-cave sound is made perfect here.
Standout numbers include the jaunty Losing All Sense, which fair tumbles along like and boulder that has just got loose.
A dip into Shield‘s Yet Again ,is enchanting – beguiling, even – thanks to the way its lilting bridge and chorus echo off the venue’s roof, all but transcendent.
If this all sounds a little highfalutin’, I don’t mean it to – there’s plenty of guts and gravel too. Genuine heartbreaker Mourning Sound thumps along, shattering on impact. Not even the self-identified ‘‘bummer’’ encore choices – Shift and Sun In Your Eyes – could pour cold water on this jubilant audience.
As Grizzly Bear’s members leave the stage to a standing ovation, those fans rush for the box office to snap up tickets to their second gig.