The Decemberists at the Fonda Music Box Theater, 3-24-05

Upon first arriving at the show last night, with my friends Jason and Stacy in tow, I noticed a mid-20's girl with a shirt that queried "Does your vorpal blade go snicker-snack?"

That's a cool reference to the Lewis Carroll poem "Jabberwocky." It took me a second to recognize it (I knew there was no such thing as a vorpal blade, so it had to be a famous quote...I was about halfway through opening act Okkervil River when it finally dawned on me), but I think that says something about the Decemberists.

Like Carroll's writing, they're laid back, easy to enjoy and approachable. This is not the fringe rock of Fly Pan Am or Tom Waits, that (I'm told) reward multiple listens but sound at first like feedback recorded on a cassette tape through a wet towel. Also like Carroll's writing, they don't appeal to every sensibility, relying on a love of history, a keen eye for allusion and most of all a penchant for imaginative flights of fancy.

Also, it's just nice to a see a cute girl who reads. In LA, that's about as common as a left-hand turn signal (which is, you know, not at all common).

But anyway, back to the band. The website refers to them as "five wan vagabonds," but I counted six Decemberists on stage last night. That's because they recently lost the services of the multi-talented Rachel Blumberg, who provided vocals and assorted instrumentals for the band since their inception. To make up for the loss of Blumberg, who left to work with another band called Norfolk and Western, the Portland group added two new members - drummer and singer/violinist Petra Hayden.

You 90's music fans may remember the delightful Ms. Hayden as a member of Weezer offshoot The Rentals, who burst on to the scene with smash alt-rock hit "Friends of P" before disappearing completely. Well, I have no idea where Hayden's been for the past decade, but she's a terrific performer. The Decemberists called on her for violin accompaniment on most of their songs as well as falsetto vocal backup, and she carried both off swimmingly. She sang lead on the Kate Bush cover, "Wuthering Heights," that proved one of the evening's most surprising selections, and an audience favorite.

But this was a show full of highlights. The Decemberists, despite only having been a band for a few years, have a staggering catalog of music to draw from. The just-released "Picaresque," full of warmly engaging pop melodies, is their third full-length album. The previous two, "Castaways and Cutouts" and "Her Majesty" both include a number of wonderful ballads and offbeat rock songs, some of which made it into the show. Plus, there's the concept EP "The Tain," which relates an old Celtic myth through the most driving hard-rock songwriter Colin Meloy has composed thus far. The entire 25 minute "The Tain" suite was performed as the show's encore.

Meloy's songs are unique in the rock canon. They're historical, dense, narrative and filled with esoteric and often obscure allusions and vocabulary. Even the subject matter speaks to the atypical nature of these rock and roll songs; "Leslie Ann Levine" tells a ghost story about an abandoned child whose mother died giving birth, "We Both Go Down Together" speaks of an aristocrat and a labor camp refugee who run off together, "The Mariner's Revenge Song" is a 10 minute sea shanty about two men stuck inside the belly of a whale. And yet these songs work because of Meloy's studious attention of the craft of pop songwriting.

He's seemingly incapable of writing a song without a terrific hook. One is reminded of the New Pornographers, who similarly fill entire albums with catchy, hook-filled tunes. However, their music lacks the weight, drama and intensity of the Decemberists music.

The bank kickstarted the evening with the first track off "Picaresque," the soaring story of a child monarch, "Infanta." It's one of the album's jumpiest, bounciest, most fun tracks, and along with the first single off the new record, the satirical "16 Military Wives," and "Los Angeles, I'm Yours" were among the most danceable, energetic of the show's moments. But the real highlight, to my mind, was the stirring performance of "Engine Driver," off of "Picaresque." This newer song exemplifies everything great about the band. It tells an intricate, detailed story told in a fluid, engaging manner that builds to an emotional and musical crescendo.

Meloy gets into these songs as he's performing them. They're not the obscure baroque gimmicry of a band like Ween. Though massively talented songwriters themselves, Ween approaches genre as a challenge - can we write the perfect blank? But Meloy focuses only on his specific genres and interests, because that's apparently what matters to him in terms of storytelling. I couldn't tell you why so many Decemberists songs deal with going off to war (particularly World War I), young women being lost at sea or love torn apart by battle. I can only say that it works spectacularly well.

The show was longer than I expected, culminating as I said with the performance of the entire "Tain" EP as an encore (along with Colin soloing on "Red Right Ankle" from "Her Majesty"). But I was never restless, as I sometimes get during long concerts. A terrific show.