Duncan Sheik is most remembered as a pop one-hit-wonder from the ninety’s, specifically, for his hit “Barely Breathing”. But for PopWrecker Mona and I, he’s an overlooked musician whose music we’ve adored for years. We’ve discussed vehemently in past conversations which albums were the strongest, which songs the most beautiful, what his influences might be, and of course which song would we most want to hear live. Concerning that last question, Mona and I have agreed on the haunting and bare-boned “Home” from Duncan’s self-titled album, whose simple lyrics sound like they came from an undelivered high school poem. That’s really Duncan’s charm, his simple lyrics are no less profound for it because he’s able to impress a feeling of innocence and authenticity. It can also be heard in his voice, he has the voice of a dreamer, you can hear in its sound that he’s not afraid to believe in something.
Mona was originally supposed to visit me in Boston so we could go to this show together and do a joint PopWreckoning review, but due to complications she was unable to make it in time for the show and instead ended up seeing Duncan Sheik in Philadelphia instead.
Opening for Duncan Sheik was a group of young musicians who are also members of Duncan’s band. Lauren Pritchard, Holly Brook, Louis Schwadron, and cellist Ben Kalb performed a number of promising pop songs which sounded wonderful in the amazing acoustics of The Berklee Performance Center. The sound here was amazing; I had almost forgotten how GOOD a show could sound just on the merit of venue alone. Amidst all the expert care with the sound, there was one annoying problem with the lights, much to the chagrin to all of us in the front rows. The overhead lights would reflect off the lacquered guitar fronts and straight into our eyes, it was really quite bothersome.
I had always been a fan of Duncan’s first three albums, but have lost touch with his more recent work in the days since. I have, however, caught enough in passing to know that Duncan Sheik has been receiving moderate success and accolades with his work scoring the recent Broadway hit, Spring Awakening. I was interested enough to check out the award-winning soundtrack from my local library and decided right away that it wasn’t my cup of tea. Honestly, as I was heading to the show I became suddenly terrified that the majority or all of the show might turn out to be musical numbers from Spring Awakening.
Duncan Sheik started his set with a few personal songs and then, sure enough, proceeded into a clump of songs from Spring Awakening. Duncan did his best to preface each song with back-story, but hearing them out of context made them sound awkward and uncompelling. I think its great that Sheik has seen success with his Broadway work, but blossoming and angsty teens singing about their feelings just fails to interest me.
Duncan then proceeded into a block of songs from his newest album, Whisper House, which he described as something of a concept album, or a preface to an upcoming play that he and his colleagues were working on. The play is about a young boy whose father dies in World War II and whose mother goes mad with grief. The boy is subsequently sent away to live with his Aunt and the ghost who live in a haunted New England lighthouse. Where the setup for the Spring Awakening songs failed, they flourished for the songs on Whisper House. This is partly because I found the story much more compelling, but mostly because the songs were so rich in storytelling and personality that if you closed your eyes you could imagine it all unfolding in your head. I don’t think that I could listen to Whisper House on its own, but hearing the songs performed live is an almost magical experience.
The eerie mood of this ghost-inspired tale is set with the opening song, “Better to Be Dead”, a song which introduces the tragic ghost characters, sung by both Holly Brook and Duncan Sheik. The songs in Whisper House are clever and witty with intriguing arrangements that translated well on stage. I found the most enjoyable to be the ballad called “The Tale of Solomon Snell”, a macabre song about the tragic demise of an over-cautious gentleman named Solomon Snell, letting us know that no one is ever truly safe. Sheik responded to the vehement applause at the end of his set by coming out and playing a surprising encore cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”. Of course I was hoping for the long shot that he would choose to play an old gem like “Home”, but it was not to be.
Mona, of course, called me immediately after her night’s show in Philadelphia to brag that not only did he play “Fake Plastic Trees” for the encore at her show but he actually followed it with “Home”.
“I think that my show was better than yours,” she said to me confidently over the phone.
Duncan Sheik: website | myspace
I heard that show went really well. Earthbound Starlight is by far my favorite song off the album. The video is great too: http://myplay.com/videos/duncan-sheik/earthbound-starlight. Also, check out Spring Awakening. He did the score for it and it is absolutely beautiful.