Owen Pallett
January 14th, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco

It’s quite impossible to imagine that Toronto native Owen Pallett would have many places left to go with his music. After his success on strings on Arcade Fire’s Funeral and award-winning acclaim for his second album, He Poos Clouds, Owen Pallett (formerly known as Final Fantasy) has established his mastery of bringing the elegance of strings back to modern music. Last week, the violin virtuoso passed through Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco.

Dapperly dressed in black with the practical decision to have his hair slicked back, Pallett appeared on stage in bright spirits. With little introduction to himself, he immediately sprang into his set with “This is the Dream of Win and Regine”, the second track off of his first album, Has A Good Home. Pallett later introduced his tour mate, Thomas Gill, who appeared on guitar and backing vocals—along with an impressive whistling solo later in the set. Accompanying the immaculate display of his solo string arrangements, Pallett’s voice was particularly disarming; on some of his previous albums, it could sometimes be overlooked in the midst of the brilliance and control of his instrument. Also featured in the set was a cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “The Dream Tree”, a song for which—as Owen quipped—people should have been applauding louder for (would they have known who she was).

Smiling and continually joking with crowd members, Pallett appeared at ease, yet was self-effacing to a fault. When making quite a minor mistake after already having played well into a song, the artist decided the crowd had had enough of that particular number and most generously proceeded to start all over with an entirely different song altogether. It was clear that Pallett’s talent came along with the small side-effect of fastidiousness.

As part of the encore, Pallett closed his set with “Midnight Directives”, which featured frenetically plucked violin and an ominous vocal by the artist. Pallett has said that the songs on Heartland are a narrative of a farmer named Lewis who possesses an innate penchant for destruction. With its ambition-tinged lyrics (“It’ll drive a man crazy / To wage from the outside in / But I have a plan it’s a trick with a prick of a pin”), “Directives” conjured up images of a man succumbing to his own misguidance.

Part musical genius, part ruffian-poet, Owen has once again painted a rich picture of the human landscape. Combining both whimsy and devastation parceled together within sectioned loops, Owen Pallett proved by the end of the show that he was not only one of today’s most innovative artists, but also that with the use of just one violin, he can create a masterpiece, a fine frenzy of furious plucking and sweeps of strings. And we were there to witness its delicate rage.

Watch: “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” [at youtube.com]

Like this article? DIGG it and sign up for our RSS feed!