Grizzly Bear ::: photo by Lauren Daniels for STG

On the whole, the rules of the blues and rock and by extension most modern western popular music have remained pretty static in terms of form and structure over time, and few ever seek to deviate from the accepted norms. On average we’ll get a few verses and a chorus, maybe a bridge, with each vocal part attached to a corresponding musical part, and that connection rarely ever being broken. It’s a scheme built around repetition and expectation, and usually any violation of that expectation, “a variation on the theme” one could term it, is reserved for after the original theme has been pounded into our head, say once two or three verses have happened. So what happens when the music doesn’t closely follow those rules for theme development? What happens when the song we’re listening doesn’t find the groove, climax, or resolution we’ve been conditioned to anticipate? This is the conundrum for listeners of Grizzly Bear, a band for whom bending those rules structure, if not outright disregarding them, is the norm.

Last Friday as we seated ourselves at the historical Moore Theater during the intermission following openers The Morning Benders, one enthusiastic superfan with a newly procured Grizzly Bear t-shirt affixed to his neck as a cape skipped back and forth, up and down the aisle, occasionally busting a move to the music and obviously chemically primed for the promise of what the ensuing hour and a half might bring. As he was coaxed by security from the main seating area he had to stop in his tracks and hop twice each time the bassline started over, which ended up being about every five seconds, much to the usher’s chagrin.

Vecktamist’s upbeat “Southern Point” opened the night (as it does the album) and the table was set: this wasn’t going to be your average rock set or blog-blessed show at The Moore. From the first song they’re adjusting our expectations of what a chorus might sound like in relation to the rest of the song, and allowing that it might be quite different each time around with even different instruments or voices carrying the thread of the melody. Maintaining consistency between each chorus is one of those natural rules we hardly even think about in our popular music, so when it’s violated so blatantly, we can’t help but notice. It can be a refreshing experience that rewards active listening, and confusing for those who need a beat to hold on to. Next was “Cheerleader,” a song that takes another simple bassline melody and then hands control of the song off to others where it finds a final reinterpretation in a round of chorus voices. The original theme is nowhere in sight, at least as we had heard it with a bass in the lead. The predictability of the twelve-bar blues was becoming a dim memory, from a time before intermission.

The unconventional “Lullabye” from Yellow House was a giant step in the direction of their early material, stuff one would probably never find on anything but a college radio station late at night. The people in front of us took this opportunity to refer to their iPhone’s and twitter accounts, while I marveled at the light show and stunning rendition of “Knife” that followed. For the duration of “Knife”, former Seattlite and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor alternated between blowing on a big baritone sax and cooing some marvelously distorted ooh-eeeeh-ohohoh’s into a free standing mic, and did so in such a way as to provide the song with an eerie sexual energy I’d never detected before.

The expansive ups and downs of “Fine For Now” and the oddball theme development of “Ready, Able” are both best appreciated when one immerses themselves entirely in the music removing all distractions, and the dark environs of the Moore were perfect for just that purpose. Given enough attention, the songs are mental roller-coaster rides one doesn’t ever need to move an inch to experience. “Ready, Able” features probably my favorite vocal moment of the group from Vecktamist, led by Ed Droste’s exacting choir boy meter. As Droste really hits the high notes on the chorus of “I go, we go, I want you to know, what I did, I did,” a psychedelic buildup of instruments and voices swirl around him, coalescing into one of the few full force moments of climax that the night offered. The memory of it resonated in my mind long after the song had past, as if it were a sublime epiphany facilitated by the influence of my own mind expanding substance.

Despite being far from my favorite song, “While You Wait for the Others” was no doubt the song most eagerly awaited by the crowd that also ended up being probably being the most impactful song of the night, even for me. The deep rhythmic tones of Daniel Rossen’s hollow-body guitar as he plucks and scrapes are the closest thing to an active danceable beat Grizzly Bear might have, and for this the entranced crowd came alive.

Wrapping up with “On a Neck, On a Spit,” they exited the stage to a standing ovation before finally leaving us with a cover of the Crystals’ “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” as an encore. Like Rossen’s earlier rendition of “Deep Blue Sea,” “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” is a haunting affair not just for the words, and is by no means the high note most bands would choose to leave on. (Deep down we all want to hear a Mellencamp cover right?) Yet it served as just another reminder that Grizzly Bear is not “most bands.” Given the level of appreciation offered in the final rounds of applause, a large portion of the audience was happily on board with that idea. The predictability of the twelve-bar blues had become a dim memory, from a time before intermission.