\u201cWhat kind of music does he play?\u201d a friend asks.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I don\u2019t know. Andrew Bird is kinda hard to pin down. The embodiment of square peg, round hole. That is not a slight, in my book.<\/p>\n
\u00a0He is somewhere in the classical violinist, folk, singer\u2013songwriter, Nashville troubadour, American Songbook, and one-man-band realm. It\u2019s been a few years since Bird has found himself in Cincinnati, but in that interim he was comfortable headlining Coachella, playing the Ryman Auditorium, and holding a four-night residency at Chicago\u2019s Fourth Presbyterian Church. He\u2019s collaborated with the Handsome Family, Matt Berninger of The National, Fiona Apple, and everyone in between.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Wednesday night he took to the stage of a crowded Covington theater, sporting black jeans suspended by a generous buckle, a button-down, and a jacket that sparkled like the disco ball hovering above the stage. He surrounded himself with three mics, violin, guitar, xylophone, a grotto of vintage amplifiers to encase him, and a very capable three-piece backing band. Andrew brings enough smoke machines to make Spinal Tap proud; adds Sigur R\u00f3s-level drone and backlighting; plays classical, Sacred Harp-style, violin-looped, 12 deep through his DL-4; drops some reverb-laden Tele twang; and whistles on a level not heard since Roger Whittaker was recording albums. His down-home style is washed with state-of-the-art programmable LEDs to give the stage that green-gold-red to match the tobacco sunburst of his hollow-bodied Gibson.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s in a league of his own,\u201d my friend says.<\/p>\n
\u00a0I think Andrew Bird has figured out what we\u2019re all not seeing. He has learned from the pioneers, has a sense of history. But to make anything that is unique, one must pick the high points from disparate genres and present the amalgamation. A cross-pollination of music\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWhat kind of music does he play?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0I don\u2019t know\u2026the good kind?<\/p>\n
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Andrew Bird<\/a> played the Madison Theater in Covington, KY on September 14, 2016. \u00a0Opening act was Gabriel Kahane<\/a>. \n\t\t\t
\nOriginally published on Polly Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n