Justin Vernon and Bon Iver battled the sold out crowd in every sense of the word August 5 at the House of Blues, through a set that consisted of a heaping portion of material from his latest effort, Bon Iver.
The first half of the set, the nine-piece outfit simply ran through the opening seven tracks from their most recent album. Although failing to delve into their back catalogue until the latter portion of their set, the band updated a handful of old favorites to reflect a new, bigger sound.
Opening with “Perth,” the band showed the complex and meticulously arranged material from Bon Iver to be seamlessly incorporated into their live set. With two drummers on stage, each cacophonous drum fill from the album was perfectly replicated. Vernon transitioned into “Minnesota, WI” with a guitar solo precisely embedded into the wall of noise created by his band.
“Holocene” kept the audience in soft rapture as the song swelled and built up to the drum rolls that mark its peak. The band held that attention through the next number, which Vernon prefaced with a pause to banter with his audience about the song’s inspiration – losing his virginity in a college dorm room. “Towers” marked a high point in the listeners’ interest in the band’s new material, with the entire audience able to get behind the song’s naïve and identifiable lyrics.
Through the album’s next three songs, “Michicant,” “Hinnom, TX” and “Wash.,” Vernon and Bon Iver lost much of the confidence that they had so effectively instilled in their audience. Crowd noise overwhelmed the softer of the band’s new offerings, welcoming a transition to their back catalogue with “the song that started this band.”
The audience was, with one fell swoop, lassoed back into the set as the band delivered a layered and intricate take on “Flume,” the simplistic opener of Vernon’s debut, For Emma, Forever Ago.
Vernon then launched into “Blood Bank,” from the band’s EP of the same name, marking the high point of the band’s set. With four guitars, the song filled the venue with an intensity not present on the studio version of the song, culminating with a screeching solo courtesy of the band’s frontman.
Vernon’s solo version of For Emma, Forever Ago closer “re: Stacks,” played on an electric guitar, showed a return to his stripped down roots, showcasing the stark beauty of much of his early material. Bon Iver also played versions of “Creature Fear” and “Team,” before closing with two new numbers “Calgary” and “Beth/Rest.”
Leaving his crowd anticipating more, Vernon returned to the stage with a steel guitar, surrounded by his band for a version of For Emma staple, “Skinny Love.” With the audience singing along and his band clapping and stomping their feet in unison with Vernon, the relatively cavernous House of Blues felt a more intimate venue.
After the rest of the band returned to their posts for Bjork cover, “Who Is It,” Vernon led the audience in singing along to “The Wolves (Act I and II).” As the crowd joined Vernon in singing, “what might have been lost,” it was clear that with Bon Iver’s development toward a bigger, more intricate sound, the gains outweigh the losses.
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