More photos soon to come from ALISSA ANDERSON
Thank you to (((folkYEAH))) for making this all possible.
It was hard not to contrast the intimate secret performance Joanna Newsom performed over the weekend on Saturday night at the Fernwood resort in Big Sur with the chance encounter I had watching her open for Sufjan Stevens in a small Los Angeles club nearly five years ago. Despite her music’s maturation over the years she has still not lost her spry and engaging quirky stage and musical presence that wins over all in attendance. The show nearly half a decade ago at the Troubadour was the perfect stage to watch her unleash her stage presence and music abilities as she sprang up on stage, hopped around and sang what sounded to be a traditional folk song that she had added such a unique twist to with her warbling demeanor, voice and harp playing that the entire audience quickly hushed for the entirety of her performance.
She may have shed her pre-raphaelite leaning attire for a strikingly contemporary couture pink dress on Saturday, but she has by no means lost an ounce of her original enrapturing sound that won over that entire audience years ago. The evening was made all the more exciting by the fact that most in attendance had no idea that she was even going to be there, much less that she was going to be playing for well over two hours trying out new material for her as yet unrecorded upcoming third studio album. A pair of sisters hiking through Big Sur and by chance huge fans of Joanna, singing her songs for much of the day were headed back to get dinner at the Fernwood Lodge, only to casually ask who was playing that night to reveal what they never could have expected to their complete elation.
The show was billed as Mariee Sioux and The Beatles’s, a pseudonym assumed by Joanna to shroud her identity from what surely would have fleshed out the crowd to a number much greater than the 50 in attendance. Mariee Sioux’s set was beautiful as usual and her voice has never sounded stronger. On a night with such excitement over the events that would proceed her she held her own and sang with confidence and strength throughout the entirety of her set. The end of her set was marked by the debut of a new song, Homeopathic, one of her strongest to date and added to the anticipation of her next album.
It was shortly after nine when Joanna took the stage. Wearing a leopard print shawl and stockings, with a bright pink highly intricate dress peeking out underneath, she was quite striking as she sat down beside the gilded harp set up on the side of the stage. Taking a seat at the harp proved to be a tease as she scooted over to the piano beside her and played a handful of songs each one somehow better than the next as she found her stride. It was with uncertain anticipation that I took to watching the performance before she began.
It’s always an interesting moment when one of your favorite artists takes to the stage to showcase their next evolution of musical progress. However, from the first pluck of her harp through the last note the performance was nothing short of rapturous. The makeup of her new songs combines the strong melodic presence of songs on the Milk-Eyed Mender with her continued instrumentational prowess and maturation beyond Y’s. It was unclear how many of the songs covered in the course of the two and a half hour set would ever be recorded, but there was never a sour note or “should be cut” moment to be heard. If anything a double album here would make perfect sense, and be one of the most enjoyable albums I’ve heard in ages.
The backing band’s arrangements were in perfect sync and sound with Joanna’s playing and added to the atmosphere of her lush and swirling landscape of songs that often stretched beyond twelve minutes. I was completely taken back by Newsom’s piano playing that was strong as can be yet oftentimes seemed effortless in a playful way that followed along with and led her vocal warblings. The makeup of the night seemed like about one third of the songs were piano based while the other two thirds being harp based. Some of the more surprising and great moments were when the electric guitar was brought front and center during the crescendo of one of the songs. It was also interesting to note throughout the set the way Joannas voice has evolved with her fluttering vocal inflections varying between the completely unrestrained and more smoothed over than ever before with the harmonies she preformed being some of the most diversely interesting she’s written. The multi-part harmonies she shared with her band mates (and self for that matter, what an amazing and capable voice) outpace anything she’s recorded yet by far.
The arrangements preformed along with Newsom’s songs also fleshed out the music beyond what she was capable of alone. The banjo, violin, drum and guitar accompaniment to the songs provided by her backing band added a lot to the sound. The encore of Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie concluded the night in the most beautiful way imaginable with its cooing chorus and wistful resolve punctuated by her rising and falling vocals. I’ll admit that while I enjoyed Y’s a lot, I favored Milk-Eyed Mendor a bit more, but after seeing her new material performed live I think it could easily be her strongest, most enjoyable album to date. I await with stubborn anticipation for these songs to be recorded and released because I really cannot wait to hear how this album turns out.
Devin Woolf
Joanna wore the same dress at the BAM. Photo credit
Joanna’s Harp minutes before she took the stage Photo by Chad Eaton.
Tyler’s experience:
The music was played on Saturday. Big Sur’s reliable afternoon sun played host to guitar plucking and river-gazing before putting its light on loan to a distant Western world. Mariee Sioux and a mystery band called “The Beatles’s” were scheduled to play in the Fernwood Lodge’s small, wood-paneled performance space: a lamp-lit area designed for, at most, a hundred feet. When I entered the hall in the dusty haze of afternoon, the light spilled across a curious scene: familiar faces milling amongst flannelled strangers talking weather and beer, myself ambling amongst them, and a golden harp inviting us all to silently speculate. Oddly enough, there were also butterflies stitched onto a powder-blue backdrop: big, beautiful insects cut from cloth, dangling large and lifeless. “The Beatles’s” mystery fluttered into the afternoon.
Later, the sun died and the sky turned speckled. The new suns above us, those points of historic navigation, blinked steadily like stars and lead us to the Lodge. My friends and I clung together down a dirt path, across a bridge, between fires, through tinny radio waves, and up a steep plank staircase that promised a haven of cigarette-talk and humanity. The music was starting and we were excited to stare.
Mariee Sioux and Joanna Newsom’s performances proved a celebration of people alive and loved, strings dormant and hopeful, and expectations dead, buried, and gone. How my hat was hung and shirttails tucked I don’t recall, but why my mind is now dancing daisy chains in loops around my eyebrows is as clear to me as it indescribable to you. Sorry. Everything evades detail. There are, however, faint impressions of songs and friends and faces unshaven and sounds unseen that appear, to me, aside reality; there are also bolder strokes of sound that are so real that I am reluctant to yarn them for fear of their undoing. It was a pretty picture I don’t often see or really care to lose.
OH MY GOD!!!!!!! i am so happy right now.
[…] Read about the entire experience over at Naturalismo. […]
So everything besides “Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie” was new material?
She opened with Bridges and Balloons, if I remember correctly. But aside from those two songs, EVERYTHING was brand new material.
That is the best news I’ve heard in a loooong time!
happy heart. been wondering where she’s gone.
[…] You know that mysterious act playing at Fernwood last Saturday called “The Beatles’s”? The one with no MySpace page? Turns out it was actually Joanna Newsom trying out new material. How much new material? About two hours’ worth, according to Pitchfork. The blog Naturalismo has tons of photos and an extensive writeup of the show. […]
[…] or something like that. But there’s great news: she debuted about two hours of new music (!) this past weekend, some of which saw her play piano instead of harp. It’s always an interesting moment when one of […]
Ive been waiting to hear news like this for a while now. I hope that album drops soon!
Absolutely amazing show.
She’s a special little one!
[…] According to Naturalismo, this past Saturday, Newsom played with Mariee Sioux at the Fernwood Resort in Big Sur, California. She played under a pseudonym, “The Beatles’s”. Devin Woolf from Naturalismo was at the show, and has a detailed account of it up here. […]
[…] last note, the performance was nothing short of rapturous,” says blogger Devin Edvard Woolf (Naturalismo). “It was unclear how many of the songs covered in the course of the two and a half hour set […]
[…] Since then, I’ve seen her a couple more times – once at the Royal Albert Hall, where she fitted beautifully with her band (the Ys Street Band – please don’t make me explain that to you) and finally her last live show last year, at Somerset House in London. At that show she played some new, mostly untitled material, and she played live a couple of days ago in Big Sur, as seen by Naturalismo. […]
[…] [ Naturalismo Exclusive ] Joanna Newsom Debuts New Record at Surprise Fernwood Show in Big Sur UPDATE: More photos soon to come from ALISSA ANDERSON Joanna’s Harp minutes before she took the stage Photo by […] […]
The Long Lost – The Long Lost…
Label: Ninja Tune
Wenn Jens Balzer in der aktuellen Spex die Weird-Folk-Bewegung beerdigt, geschieht dass nicht zu unrecht, ist seit Joanna Newsoms Ys doch keine wirklich überzeugende Platte mehr erschienen, die das Label verdiente, das schließlic…
i was there, and it was probably all around the most beautiful performance i’ve ever seen. i never realized how gorgeous she was. not to mention her stage presence. she was making fun of her drummer who apparently has been making lots of jokes about the stock market, and she also gets really excited when her guitarist randomly plays some weird blues riff at the end of certain songs. oh, and she was repeating the “bop bop bop!” gunshot sounds into the mic that someone in the audience was doing. there were also some annoying people further back there were being noisy but i think everyone eventually began to ignore them. good times!
Wow, what an amazing experience that show must have been. I could not imagine my excitement if I stumbled across a random Joanna Newsom show in front of 50 people with Joanna debuting two hours of new material.
Can anyone who went tell me if she played the songs she played last summer, one of them is called Esame I believe… And was the style a lot different than YS or more along the same lines? Any info would be great… thanks!
She was awesome. The crowd sucked big time. Non stop *loud* conversation from drunks. And this was 2 feet from the sound guy, not in the absolute back of the place.
Where are the rest of the pictures?
visit us!
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NOW!
[…] came up with a tickling discovery: Joanna Newsom, if not releasing the album of unbelievable songs we saw debuted in Big Sur a few months back, is at least thinking about playing some shows this Autumn. Which probably means […]
[…] Naturalismo Exclusive ] Joanna Newsom Debuts New Record at Surprise Fernwood Show in Big Sur […]
She is divine. Can’t wait for the new one, all of her new material so far has been beautiful.
Joanna is my future wife. She just doesnt know it yet. haha. in all seriousness though this girl is incredible, i dont listen to her music often, but its only because i love her so much i never want it to get old and tiresome. Listening to this girl is always an experience. I just wish she played more live shows.
[…] looks like the new decade is off to a good start. Joanna Newsom, who debuted her mysterious new material for us and 70 others in Big Sur back in March, has finally locked in some global tourdates for the […]
[…] as “The Beatles’s,” debuted new songs over the weekend at the Fernwood Resort in Big Sur: “It was also interesting to note throughout the set the way Joannas voice has evolved with […]
[…] as “The Beatles’s,” debuted new songs over the weekend at the Fernwood Resort in Big Sur: “It was also interesting to note throughout the set the way Joannas voice has evolved with […]