The New Pornographers fill Meijer Gardens with shimmering pop, anti-classic rock affair

Just more than half full, the outdoor amphitheater on Wednesday night nevertheless resonated with the Canadian band’s unique, effervescent vibe. (Review, photo gallery)

 

Meet The New Pornographers, same as The Old Pornographers.

Well, mostly.

The buzz around Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park Wednesday was, generally: “Where’s Neko?”

As in Neko Case, who wasn’t there, and who has toured with the Canadian quasi-supergroup decreasingly in recent years while her profile has risen as an alt-country solo artist. Same with Dan Bejar, who is now better known for his work helming Destroyer than for his regular contributions to The New Pornographers.

The long running power-pop group led by AC Newman nevertheless lit up the stage with a 90-minute, career-spanning set that hit the high points from each of the group’s six albums and showcased the dazzling supporting vocals of Kathryn Calder, who has become a staple in the New Pornos’ touring lineup, and Simi Stone, a new addition to the group. (John Collins, Blaine Thurier, Todd Fancey and Joe Sieders rounded out the ensemble.)

The band is wrapping up a leg of touring behind the 2014 album “Brill Bruisers,” a forceful, uptempo effort that recalls the group’s effervescent early records more than its mannered immediate predecessors. That title is a reference to the Brill Building era of late ’50s and early ’60s American pop music, which Newman evokes more readily than any contemporary songwriter besides perhaps the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, or anybody else since Elvis Costello.

TRANSCENDENT HARMONIES ON A ‘PORNOGRAPHICALLY PLEASANT’ EVENING

Shimmery new tunes “Champions of Red Wine,” “You Tell Me Where” and “Dancehall Domine” mixed buoyantly with older chestnuts such as “The Laws Have Changed,” “Mass Romantic” and “The New Face of Zero and One.”

Newman writes songs with the precision of someone who builds model ships inside bottles. Dense with chord changes, structurally twisty and ladled with transcendent harmonies and unconventional instrumentation, several of his compositions sound like they belong in the Great American Songbook.

And none is better than “The Bleeding Heart Show,” a towering, masterful work loaded with so many hooks it feels like it will collapse under its own weight, but gathers a stampeding momentum and somehow stays aloft. As the closing song on an almost pornographically pleasant West Michigan evening, it seemed to fill the entire sky.

This was the band’s first Grand Rapids performance since 2010, when Calvin College axed a scheduled appearance after people on campus objected to some of the band’s lyrical content as well as its name. Calvin took a beating in the national music press, and the show later was moved to The Orbit Room.

Newman never mentioned the incident (nor bothered to remove his sunglasses at any point), but he did jokingly threaten to give the show a classic Nirvana ending, which would have meant destroying everything onstage, including some excellent neon-lit keyboard stands. As if.

Even among the indie crowd, the New Pornos are a bit polarizing — taken in large quantities, the band’s music can produce something like an ice cream headache. But for anyone who wanted some more rough edges, opening act Thao and the Get Down Stay Down from San Francisco provided a worthy counterpoint, ripping through an hour-long opening set of fierce and fun blues-heavy rock, gradually winning over a fairly sedate crowd.

Even with all these bases covered, attendance was relatively thin — just shy of 1,000 and a little more than half the venue’s capacity. From a concertgoer’s perspective, this felt like the perfect amount of elbow room for a Gardens show.

And anybody who attended Monday’s sold-out, paint-by-numbers Pat Benatar show could have been twice as entertained Wednesday night for half the ticket price.

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS AND THAO: THE LOCAL SPINS PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Anna Sink

Copyright 2015, Spins on Music LLC