Shearwater – London Union Chapel

May 12, 2009

Following what had already been a startling, perfectly-pitched support set from The Cave Singers, Shearwater took to the stage at the Union Chapel just as dusk was turning to darkness. The Union Chapel is a wonderful yet underrated venue; it’s a church for starters, so the acoustics are spot on, and the ornate setting suits the music of bands like Shearwater perfectly. The audience sat in the pews like a church congregation, some sipping on cups of tea and coffee since alcohol can’t be taken into the chapel – not your ordinary gig, then. There’s a pulpit in the middle of the stage/altar that Shearwater set up their instruments around; several of us wondered whether bands were allowed to use it. I bet Nick Cave could put on a good preacherman performance in somewhere like this.

Opening, fittingly, with Palo Santo’s highlight ‘Hail Mary’, the band, and particularly Shearwater’s lead singer and song writer Jonathan Meiburg, display an energy, passion and power from the off; no easing into a show for them. Meiburg’s voice is impressive on record; in person, in a setting like this, it is a thing to behold, leaping up octaves with apparent ease, issuing yelps and cries at other moments. ‘Rooks’ follows immediately; the audience recognises its mournful arpeggios and, along with the band, don’t look back.

The various members of Shearwater chop and change instruments all night. At times they can look like your traditional guitars-bass-drums rock band, at others a clarinet, glockenspiels, a double bass and various forms of percussion augment their sound for their more stately songs. Material is drawn largely from their last two records, 2006’s breakthrough Palo Santo and last year’s exquisite Rook. The former’s ‘Seventy Four, Seventy Five’ and ‘Red Sea, Black Sea’ sit neatly alongside tracks from the latter such as the raucous ‘Century Eyes’ and ‘The Snow Leopard’, whose brass-led builds lean themselves perfectly to the surroundings. The band largely ignore their quieter songs, preferring the juxtapositions in sound they can produce with their louder material.

The audience are treated to a few new songs throughout the night; one, which featured both drummer Thor Harris and bassist Kimberly Burke on glockenspiels, is a particular highlight, suggesting Shearwater are already looking beyond their current success. For a band that started out as Meiburg’s side project to Okkervil River, they now seem to have found a more definite direction and purpose since Meiburg turned to Shearwater fulltime. His songs take nature, love and loss as their subjects largely, focusing on their cycles and disasters, and the setting of the Union Chapel leans itself to them perfectly. Rook tracks ‘The Hunter’s Star’ and ‘Home Life’ close out the night as the band receive a standing ovation; just rewards for an energetic, breathtaking performance.