MOG

Last night, I had the honour of interviewing Matt and Eleanor Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces before their show in SF. The brother-sister team is super friendly and they have an envious rapport with each other.

During the interview, I had some trouble keeping up with which answers were real and which were make-believe, coz they seem adept at blurring the difference. Was Eleanor for real when she admitted she's not a fan of The Doors? I thought the Fiery Furnaces sounded a bit like The Doors when they played live: Eleanor telling stories over Matthew's psychedelic synths, repeating phrases like Jim Morrison's chanting, all together hypnotising the crowd. And would Matthew really prefer listening to music he hasn't heard before - but considers bad - over anything currently available? Perhaps. Or maybe his desire to listen to old Turkish soap opera soundtracks stems from a healthy passion for fat, seventies-style synth music.

Matt comes across as a dreamer, who prefers what's possible to what is. Perhaps this is why the band reinvents its sound on each new album. Eleanor, on the flip side, tells it as she sees it. She seems to be the grounding force for her bro, while the lyrics themselves seem to ground her in each song. Both in person and on stage, Matt appears to look up to Eleanor and follows her lead, despite her being his "little" sister.

Seeing the Fiery Furnaces at the Great American Music Hall last night, was the first time I've seen them live. The music and energy was hot, but I can see why many fans have commented that the musicians look miserable on stage. Even the guy behind me wouldn't shut up about how it looked like a funeral up there. It's true that Eleanor and Matthew rarely smile when they play. And when they do smile, it's more like they are laughing to themselves than smiling at the crowd. (In Matthew's defense, he smiled quite a bit, though I doubt many people could see his face as it was hunched over one of three keyboards most of the time.) I thought it looked like they were concentrating on the task at hand, rather than unhappy, but it's clear the fans would like them to loosen up a bit. I was thrilled to see them being themselves. Speaking of thrilled, the "second chair" keyboardist, i.e. the lovely lady playing bells and some kind of synth, looked pretty elated to be there. She smiled most of the time she was on stage and was sweet as honey before the show. The drummer also looked stoked and I think he would have smiled more too if he wasn't working so hard to keep everybody together. All in all a fantastic show!

The Fiery Furnaces played an encore of a few songs and Matthew lingered afterwards to collect audience submissions for the "democ-rock" campaign and chat with fans.

Thanks so much to the Fiery Furnaces, MOG, and Great American Music Hall for a wonderful night!