Live at the Danforth Music Hall, 30 September 2015
On 24 August, Destroyer released Poison Season on Merge Records, a modest four and a half years after the release of Kaputt. With a jammed-packed schedule of dates all across North America, Destroyer’s tour in support of the album looks gruelling,. The band stopped into Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall on September 30th and I was lucky enough to be in attendence.
Destroyer is Dan Bajer. Dan Bajer is Destroyer. Bajer has been releasing music as Destroyer for almost 20 years. The only constant over those twenty years has been his voice. A seemingly infinite number of musicians have played with Bajer on Destroyer albums. He goes out of his way to defy classification, ensuring that each album is distinct from anything he has ever released before. Even with all this change, picking out a Destoyer song, wherever it is played, whatever album it is on, is easy. Bajer’s voice is too identifiable. And that is a by no means a bad thing. Bajer has a unique way of delivering his lyrics: sharp, quick, and insightful bursts. The words are articulted so well that at times it is as if he is speaking and not singing. Bajer acknowledges having had a strong affinity for how Lou Reed used to deliver his lyrics.
Although Destroyer has no shortage of outstading records, its listenership reached a new peak after the release of Kaputt in early 2011. Kaputt was a staple on Top 10 lists on all the major music publication’s year end reviews. What did Destroyer do to follow up the success of Kaputt? They released an EP called Five Spanish Songs, which is exactly what you would think it is: five spanish songs. The EP was brilliant and beautiful, but releasing a foreign language EP to follow up a massively successful album is a move only Dan Bajer could imagine. In a press release before the EP’s release, Bajer wrote: “It was 2013. The English language seemed spent, despicable, not easily singable. It felt over for English; good for business transactions, but that’s about it. The only other language I know is Spanish…” It is blatently obvious that Bajer is not concerned with his number of fans. It is refreshing to see an artist be themselves and have no concern for the expectations of fans and critics.
Destroyer walked on stage with 9 musicians, including Bajer. After a quick welcome wave, the band jumped right into “Bangkok”, a song off the new album. It was slow and seductive to start until it finally exploded into an ocean of sound with every musician contributing. It was a perfect opener. For the slowburner “Girl in a Sling” a 10th musician, Bajer’s sister, came on stage to add violin. Nine musicians wouldn’t cut it.
My ears, along with the ears of everyone else at the Danforth, were treated to shear musical bliss for 90 minutes. The instrumentation on each song was lavish to the point where you wished you could hop on the groove and go for a ride. When the trumpet and saxophone got into full swing a good song instantaneously became a great song. The setlist was comprised largely of songs from Poison Season and Kaputt. When playing “Poor in Love”, off Kaputt, Bajer lookedat the audience while pulling at his hair and sang “I was poor in love / I was poor in wealth / I was ok in everything else there was”. In turning a phrase, Bajer is a genuis; no other artist can say as much by saying so little. My favourite Bajer lyric is on “Savage Night at the Opera” where he sings “It’s not a war until someone loses an eye.” There is just something oddly amusing about that line. I was absolutely delighted when the band began playing “European Oils” from Destroyer’s Rubies released in 2006. This was the first Destroyer song I ever heard so it was very nostalgic.
Other than a few thank-you’s after the songs, Bajer did not talk to the audience. It was all about the music. I would describe the band’s performance as ‘workmen-like.’ Bejar didn’t play an instrument during the concert. During the instrumental sections of the songs he crouched down into a squat, took a drink of Stella Artois, and basked in the beauty of the music he created. The packed Danforth was buzzing from the opening note until the last. I was lost in the music for the entire set, nothing else ever entered my mind.
Destroyer’s encore was the 9-minute “Rubies” from Destroyer’s Rubies. It is a great comparison of how Destroyer’s songs have changed over the years. “Rubies” is lyrically dense with Bajer just spewing out words. Nothing is left unsaid. With Kaputt and Posion Season, less is more when it comes to the lyrics. However, Bajer still manages to pack an overwhelming amount of meaning into his concise lyrics.
On the whole, Poison Season is darker and less popy than Kaputt. It features an abundance of dazzling string arrangments which did not feature on Kaputt. The trumpet on the Springsteen-esque “Dream Lovers,” the most popy song on the new album, gave the crowd at the Danforth a extra shot of energy. A charming rendition of my favourite song off the new album, “Times Square” came in the middle of the set. It contains the most memorablelyric on the new album: “Writing on the wall / Wasn’t writing at all”. “Times Square” appears on Poison Season three times in three very different styles. Apparently Bajer couldn’t decide which version he liked best. In interviews, Bajer says there was a plan to record Posion Season live in studio. This is in direct contrast to Kaputt, where the songs were tracked and layered instrument by instrument. As a result, all of the new songs come across naturally streamlined for live shows.
Bajer considers himself an artist first and foremost. He would likely cringe at being labelled a rockstar or singer/songwriter. He is one of the few artists working today to include poetry in his lyrics. Bajer believes that art exists because words are not enough to express all of our emotions. In interviews he can come across as pretentious, dull, and a little fed-up. His physical appearance is one notch above what would be expected of a hobo on the street. That is Bajer’s whole persona. It is as if he wants you to believe he is a tortured artist who spends his solemn days writing poetry, engaged in philosophical debates and musing on the shortcomings of the world. And maybe he does. I don’t know. But I can see why he may initially rub some people the wrong way. For me, his music contains a poignancy and intellect that is absent in most popular music today, and this is enough to overlook any shortcoming.