Bon Iver is a Natural Wonder at Champions Square
Bon Iver In concert, by Graham Tolbert
The sought after indie artist delivered both profound and sleep worthy moments at his New Orleans appearance last Friday.
Bon Iver is a natural wonder. Like watching a spider meticulously build its web, or the sun rising slowly in the East, Justin Vernon’s show at Champions Square last Friday was beautiful but required patience. When Vernon played a song off of For Emma, Forever Ago, his groundbreaking 2008 debut, a girl next to me covered in pink makeup and sparkles clutched her face in disbelief. As the droning saxophone of “8 (circle)” washed over us, two finance bros in front of me embraced.
I knew I was seeing something amazing, and that someone out there in the audience was probably sobbing to every song, but I periodically found myself checking the time to see when it would be over. I felt like a spoiled nine-year-old kid whose parents drove them all night to see a meteor shower that happens once every 50 years. There were moments that were cool, but there were also stretches where I was desperately trying to feel something.
Before the show started, I watched the people trickle into Champions Square. Millennial boyfriends walked around sporting vintage North Face windbreakers. Two middle-aged women wearing denim jackets and cross-body purses stood in the cocktail line. A group of young twentysomethings wore long ‘70s-inspired maxi skirts that blew in the breeze, summoning some sort of Laurel Canyon revival. A white lady with dreads walked past me towards the Bud Light tent. Men in polos and long sleeve dress shirts made their way to the reserved seating area, looking as if they had just gotten off work from the business district.
As the square slowly filled, it became apparent that every single kind of person was there. Country boys with patriotic Under Armour athletic shirts. Hippies that laid on astral tapestries. Men who looked like lumberjacks. Young gay couples. Families who brought their kids. Every type of person you could think of—except for teenagers—was in attendance. The crowd’s make-up prompted a couple of questions. Is Bon Iver’s music so powerful that it universally connects with everyone? Or is it so generic that it alienates absolutely nobody?
Vernon appeared through the smoke wearing his usual sweatband and running shoes. The Jagged LED structures he’s been touring with for the past couple of years cut apart the stage like mountains. Each musician entered their own mountain range as the crowd in reserved seating rose to their feet. Broken synths rang out through the giant stack of speakers like the gates of Atlantis were opening. Vernon’s voice warbled the opening lines of “iMi” in exaggerated Auto-Tune, while people raised their hands to the open sky as if they were attending an outer space church service.
As the synths began to disperse and dissipate, the lights turned the colors of rich tide pools, and everything darkened. “We’ll all be gone by the fall / We’ll all be gone by the falling light,” Vernon sang as the dystopian sounds of the track “Jelmore” screeched. That song was depressing, but not in the way it was supposed to be. Imagine every basic thing you could ever say about climate change put into song form. It’s enough to make you feel like we’re a little more doomed than we think we are.
There were profound moments too. Vernon’s voice stirs you. It can leap from airy falsetto to a deep, rich tone with ease. He has a grit that is hard to fake. “So I’m gonna weep a while / You don’t even know how hard,” Vernon gasped as he sang through the end of “Salem.” His voice ran through the melody like water weaving through stones in a river.
There were times during Vernon’s set where it made sense that audience members were feeling emotional. His voice has the effect of stabbing you in the heart. However, there were also times when it was hard to tell why people were having such strong reactions.
As we were reaching the peak of the song “Blood Bank,” red and white streaks were flashing as if the lighting tech had decided to press every button on the board at the same time. The lights were very cool, but if Bon Iver didn’t have access to the full shebang (like the opener Dijon), that peak moment would have fallen kind of flat. The band's strategy was to all hit quarter notes together at the same time. The dude in front of me was losing his mind. “That was nuts,” he said to another bro next to him as the last chord rang out. Was it though?
Other moments moved at what felt like a glacial pace. For “715 - CREEKS,” Vernon sang through so many layers of Auto-Tune that it rendered him unintelligible and borderline satanic, but the sounds didn’t give him any edge. Just a lot of long, silent pauses.
However, waiting through the jam-like moments (that didn’t really feel like crazy jam moments) and the robotic, a cappella ballads ended up paying off. The show was all a slow burn after all.
At the end of the set, Vernon asked us to sing with him. He single strummed glittering acoustic chords, and everyone recognized the song immediately. It was the melody to “The Wolves (Act I and II).” He guided us through the refrain of the song while people in the crowd rocked back and forth, pulsating as if they were one giant organism.
“What might have been lost / What might have been lost,” the audience yelled back at Vernon as he strummed his guitar harder. Around me, couples held each other as if they were trying to keep themselves from the impending doom of breaking up. A man took off his baseball cap and waved it in the air to the beat of the drum hits. A woman next to me held her hands over her heart as if she were clutching it. It was a beautiful shared moment amongst everyone there.
Vernon was at his best when he stuck to what was necessary. When he unburied himself from the ten layers of harmonic Auto-Tune, and connected with the audience using the raw power of his deep voice.
For the encore, I turned around as the scattered electric guitar riffs of “RABi” fluttered like butterflies. “And if I know one thing at all / Is I cannot just be a peach,” Vernon sang while rich orange colored lights rained down. The people in GA sat on steps that led up to the illuminated Superdome. They held their knees to their chest, arms around their legs, looking out as if they were watching the Northern Lights. It was worth the wait.
