Bon Iver’s Fairytale Riverstage Show
Listening to Bon Iver is like going to therapy, you always seem to cry, but you always leave the experience feeling a whole lot lighter. Bon Iver is an American Indie Folk Band founded in 2006 by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. Justin Vernon is most famously known as the dude who went away to his dad’s snow cabin for a few months, after a breakup; and came back with one of the greatest albums of the “00’s”, ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’. I have admittedly stared at the ceiling contemplating my existence many times to this album and when I heard the band were coming to Meanjin/Brisbane’s very own Riverstage, my past breakups and I, knew we had to get around it.
The night kicked off with the support act, Gordi, a folktronica artist out of New South Wales who like Vernon and his band, is on the record label; ‘Jagjaguwar’. Gordi had a sound not too dissimilar to Bon Iver’s more recent records, ’22, A Million’ and ‘i,i’. Gordi’s live set was more electronic than her records, but it was welcome, as she put on an emotional and great set filled with clear musicianship. I recommend the tunes, ‘Extraordinary Life’ and ‘Way I Go’, if you were to check her out, as they were true hitters live.
With Gordileaving the stage behind we all waited around with tissues at the ready. Bon Iver came out onto the stage to a roar from the Riverstage crowd. Kicking things off with the folktronica magnificence of ‘22 (OVER S∞∞N)’, a quick reminder to the crowd to enjoy this moment of beauty, as it “might be over soon”. Continuing in the fashion of playing tracks off of their album, ’22, A Million’, the band went on to play ‘666 ʇ’, with Vernon flexing his vocal muscle as the band shined behind him.
Bon Iver then dipped back into their folk roots playing ‘Towers’ off of their self-titled album from 2010, one that all the old-head fans would’ve enjoyed. The crowd were tumultuous in their noise as the night went on, unsure whether to cheer for the brilliance of the band and their long-awaited return; or to let the songs navigate them into feeling emotions they’d probably supressed for a while. This feeling sustained into the next quadrupled of songs ‘U (Man Like)’, ‘Heavenly Father’ and ‘10 d E A T h b R E a s T ⚄ ⚄’ and ‘715 - CR∑∑KS’.
Between songs, Vernon would be a man of very few words, thanking the crowd nonetheless but obvious in his approach to just letting music do the talking. But no one in the Riverstage crowd wanted more crowd interaction as their set was already providing it. The band then went on to play two tracks off of their 2019 critically acclaimed album, ‘i,i’, ‘Faith’ and ‘Marion’, the latter Vernon performing with raw and intense emotion. Moving on, Bon Iver played two of their biggest hitters, ‘Wash’ and ‘Perth’. The crowd were treated to an absolute clinic on drums from the band during ‘Perth’, the two drummers played like ones out of a marching band. This juxtaposed with Vernon spilling his heart out, was one of the purest and most moving things I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.
Knowing that there was a lot of the crowd favourites that hadn’t even played yet only made us more on our toes waiting for the next track. And as we all soon expected, they treated us the divine melody of ‘Hey, Ma’. ‘Hey, Ma’ just has one of those contagious hooks that had the entire crowd singing, whether they’d heard it once just in the chorus before, or they’d been listening since it first was released. The band followed this high of the night with ‘____45_____’, ‘33 "GOD"’ and ‘Calgary’, flexing their musicianship throughout.
Bon Iver have such a vast and stacked catalogue of music that there wouldn’t be many absent songs from the set that would have made me upset. But two songs from their debut album, ‘Re: Stacks’ and ‘Skinny Love’ not being played would’ve probably made me tear up for the wrong reasons. Lucky for me and the crowd, they were played back-to-back. The band left Vernon by himself for ‘Re: Stacks’, as he poured his heart out to the Brisbaner’s watching on. Closing with the line, “your love will be safe with me”, the crowd all felt safe in the hands of he and his band. Moving onto ‘Skinny Love’, the band came back out to what was a song filled with assistance from the crowd. I heard thousands of different voices sing the chorus of ‘Skinny Love’, all with different types of emotion that they individually connect to the song, truly a thing of beauty.
We knew after hearing two of their biggest songs, the end was surely near. With the band “closing” their set off with ‘Holocene’ and ‘Naeem’, tracks that persisted us through the high we had just felt in the songs previous. But as we all know, when a set is as good as this one was, the crowd will always ask for more, an encore. They cheered as the band came back out to play two more tunes. Flying into the encore with an orchestrated version of hit song ‘Blood Bank’. The intensity in its delivery was truly felt as red lighting bewildered the eyes of the Riverstage crowd. Finishing the set and its encore off, the band played ‘RABi’, a song that feels like it could play over ending credits in an indie film.
Leaving Riverstage through the packed crowd, I certainly felt as if I’d had a bucket set-list moment. A set that spent so much time forcing me to reflect on my past all whilst enjoying the musical treat I was being given. And I am sure the rest of the crowd could vouch for that too.