If John Vanderslice’s grace, talent and way with a crowd seem organic, it’s because they are.
Some artists seem to consistently slingshot others artists into fame, while remaining in comparative obscurity themselves, and is one of them. Last Friday night at the he proved that his indie music deserves a much wider audience than it enjoys. Showing his comfortable, approachable, even deferential persona, he didn’t seem to care for a second about the music’s reach or popularity, only its beauty.
For the past decade, Vanderslice has been a veritable force behind many a band’s rise to indie pop stardom, including Death Cab for Cutie, Spoon, Sufjan Stevens and Okkervil River, among others. All of these bands have either recorded in his San Francisco-based studio, , or have toured as opening acts — or both — before hitting their stride. After taking in Vanderslice’s sweet, yet thoughtful, imaginative and vivid pop, itap easy to see how he could become the musical anchor a young band often needs.
Vanderslice was joined onstage by drummer Matthias Bossi, guitarist Sylvain Carton, bassist Jamie Riotto and keyboardist Ian Bjornstad. The band hammered out more than an hour’s worth of saccharine and pregnant balladry in front of a small (for a Friday) but enraptured audience. They traipsed joyfully through a playlist that featured much of the latest record, “Romanian Names,” but also included nuggets from past efforts including 2005’s “Pixel Revolt” and 2007’s “Emerald City.”
Starting with “Lucifer Rising,” a song from the “Moon Colony Bloodbath” EP Vanderslice split with the Mountain Goats, they set an ebullient mood. Next, they meandered through “Exodus Damage,” “D.I.A.L.O” and “They Won’t Let Me Run” and solidified a strong camaraderie with the audience. After that, Vanderslice’s personality really began to sparkle.
As he led the band through “Trance Manual,” the audience swayed silently, almost sleepily, but wide-eyed and captive. Before launching into the trippy swirl of “When It Hits My Blood,” the band serenaded an audience member enjoying his 21st birthday with an a cappella scat. Later Vanderslice honored a shouted request from the audience for “Keep the Dream Alive,” from 2001’s “Time Travel Is Lonely,” after taking a few minutes onstage to teach the band how to play it.
In a move I’ve seen a few times at the Hi-Dive, the band eschewed the ruse of an encore, as there really isn’t anywhere to retreat save directly into the audience, in favor of merely kicking out three final songs. They offered up “White Plains,” a beautiful version of “Tablespoon of Codeine” and “Too Much Time,” and then announced that the rest of the night would be a dance party to the tunes of “Paul’s Boutique.” The party didn’t produce much dancing, but the band members did spend an hour or so talking and laughing among the audience. Their welcoming personalities added community to the Hi-Dive’s intimacy, right up until the crowd emptied out onto a warm South Broadway.
Billy Thieme is a Denver-based writer, an old-school punk and a huge follower of Denver’s vibrant local music scene. Follow Billy’s giglist at
