Since the heartsick cabin rock of 2008’s For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver have always seemed a determinedly cult proposition rather than something striving for the mainstream.
So it’s doubly impressive that an eight-night run of shows at the 5,039 capacity Hammersmith Apollo have completely sold out, meaning more than 40,000 fans will be sampling the Justin Vernon-led outfit’s brand of tricksy, expansive folk over the next week and a bit.
Last night, the first crowd in got a sprawling, dizzyingly inventive show that frequently thrilled and, occasionally, frustrated. Styled as “An Evening With…” , the show began in intense style, with a sequential rip through latest album, 2016’s 22, A Million.
Sporting chunky headphones, backed by a band featuring two drummers and on a stage framed by dangling, ghostly white rushes, Vernon, left, raised his crisp, clear falsetto above 22 (Over Soon)’s blaring horns and 10 (Death Breast)’s chest-rattling bass. The musicianship was dazzling but the overall effect — Vernon twiddling knobs amid pulsing lights — came over more than a little chilly and overwhelming.
10 must-hear albums arriving in 2018
29 #Strafford Apts (reborn tonight as an all-out country number) brought some much needed warmth. And as the band re-emerged for the second half, earlier songs threw several melodic bones to the crowd. The opening guitar licks of Perth (from their self-titled 2011 album) drew a huge, relieved roar, Towers came furnished with a twitchy, Eighties funkiness and Blood Bank packed a Springsteenian, blue-collar wallop.
That Vernon spurned shouted requests to play first album hit Skinny Love and instead opted for a noodly, jazz-inflected run at Michicant speaks to the night’s challenging experimentalism and stuttering momentum. But it’s hard to quibble too much when you’re witnessing master musicians conducted by a onetime woodsman turned restless, versatile virtuoso.
