Sweet love songs convincingly honest [Wexner Center - Columbus, OH Review]

Posted on August 11, 2008

There’s another positive show review coming from The Columbus Dispatch on She & Him’s August 4th Wexner Center (Columbus, OH) show. [thanks fabgroovy for the link]

Irony took a vacation last night in the Wexner Center’s Performance Space during a two-hour concert headlined by She & Him.

The band’s mostly acoustic sound casually framed the sweet, pining love songs of actress Zooey Deschanel, who sang them with a winning simplicity and convincing honesty. Hip indie-rock songwriter M. Ward, Deschanel’s co-conspirator and producer of the group’s debut album, masterminded the presentation with a reserved style that set the tone for the set.

Deschanel’s songs, remembrances of old love, yearnings for new and ambivalence over romance lost, were front and center all night. Many began with simple lines with a classic ring: “I was taking a walk when I saw you pass by,” from I Was Made For You; “Cried all night ’til there was nothing more,” from Sentimental Heart.

Both were among the evening’s high points, though the first was wide-eyed, a little giddy and a touch sultry. The second investigated the consequences of falling that way, without a net.

Take It Back opened with a haunting delivery of the title and a hint of sour grapes before becoming downright sexy in the swinging blues chorus.

Though Deschanel’s songs are simple, their lyrics boiled to essence, there is an unconscious sophistication to them. She skillfully puts that depth into her performance, perhaps drawing from her acting.

With a stature, a fashion sense, and most important, a voice that recalls mid-1960s post-Stone Poneys Linda Ronstadt, she taps a classic sound. With her naivete and so-so technique, she adds a plain-sounding honesty that fits her songs perfectly.

Where the album’s recording surrounds the vocals with space but also washes them with reverb, live Deschanel stood stage center and delivered, nearly devoid of sonic props.

Ward’s fills helped add color, especially during the intense but short solo for the playful love song Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? The band very simply but effectively added detail, echoing country, folk, 1960s “girl group,” and surf sounds.

Though the songs frequently reached back to vintage influence – This Is Not A Test would be a fine addition to a Mamas & Papas record – they were not the least bit stalled in the past.

Pulling them off, however, required finding the innocence of an earlier era and performing without a trace of irony, a treatment that made covers by the likes of Joni Mitchell perfect source material.

It was a quality singer Becky Stark, who opened the show, had in the extreme. Impossibly sensitive, almost comically nave, and seemingly lost onstage, she delivered a short set that rarely had enough confidence to find the beauty in her best songs.

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