Neutral Milk Hotel – The King of Carrot Flowers (Pts. 1, 2 and 3)
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You know how, when you finally meet someone’s family, all their little quarks and eccentricities suddenly makes sense? That’s how it was so see Neutral Milk Hotel play BAM’s historic opera house last week in Brooklyn. For the past few years, NMH’s elusive, but idolized frontman, Jeff Mangum, has been touring alone, playing stripped-down versions of the band’s old material. But now, with NMH reunited, we finally get to meet Jeff’s family, and what a gathering it is.
Mangum is certainly a strange man — tall, sweatered and bearded, indie’s most famous hermit assumes a sort of Christ-like magnetism when on stage. His clothes are baggy and outdated, his voice is grating, yet he holds the audience transfixed in the palm of his hand. Compared to the other band members, though, Mangum is surprisingly normal. Julian Koster (keyboards, bass, banjo, bell, singing saw, accordion, etc.) has the composure of a twelve-year-old on a not-yet-invented hallucinogen. His sheepish smile offsets his frenetic, even spastic playing, which teeters constantly between elation and collapse. NMH’s master of horns, Scott Spillane, looks like he’s spent the last decade farming in Amish country. His adorable, white chinbeard flexes every time he graciously thanks the audience, seemingly shocked at the crowd’s adoration. Jeremy Barnes, now sporting a bullfighter’s mustache, attacks the drums with a blind ferocity that’s at times worrying.
While Mangum is still a presence onstage, one can’t help but look with perplexed awe at the whole band ensemble. Spillane’s horn arrangments were triumphant, especially when additional players pitched in with French horn, trumpet, etc. NMH’s eccentric instrumental choices have always delighted, and last night was no exception — “Untitled” featured electric uilleann pipes – electric fuckin’ uilleann pipes (which were amazing, of course). For “Ghost”, an unnamed, emaciated woman came onstage to play the smoldering fuzz bass part. I’m confident that this was the only rock show I’ll see with a euphonium player.
Of course, the band left the stage a few times to let Jeff do his iconic one-man songs – “Two-Headed Boy” (parts one and two), “Oh Comely”, etc. For these, a single white light from above illuminated Jeff and his guitar, a half-funny, half-goosebumpy nod to his divine cult status. Then the band would return, to much applause, as a reminder that any whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Mangum stopped five seconds into their first song (“The King of Carrot Flowers”), and later explained the hiccup: “I just got very emotional about being here again with my dear friends, being able to play with them.” We understood.
