JOANNA NEWSOM with the ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
NOVEMBER 17, 2007
WOODRUFF CENTER, ATLANTA, GA
WORDS & PHOTOS: AW HENDERSON

Joanna Newsom isn’t a fairy, don’t believe the hype. She’s an angel, and she’s the only one who can inspire in me a desire to organize a ten-person caravan for a six-hour drive down the East Coast. That’s why I gave $400 of my hard earned cash to Ticketmaster four months ago, and even though it took me almost the whole time to track down ticket money from my friends, the experience was more than worth it for someone as nerdy for Joanna as I am.

Courtesy of a generous friend, our ten-person group procured a capacity-12 for the trip from Chapel Hill, N.C. down to the stomping grounds of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, who would be backing up Miss Newsom for the first half of the night. Gas-saving prudence led us to split the trip into two legs, the first involving twin cars of five persons each converging on Charlotte, N.C. for the big scramble into the van, which would be our vessel for the rest of the ride.

There’s not a word in the English language for that quality of atmosphere that descends on a group of people when they’re sharing in enthusiasm for a single goal while packed tightly together in a vehicle. It’s exhilarating and exhausting at the same time, and I love it. The trip may have been the first I’ve ever taken where I did not fall asleep against the window or slumped in the loose sling of my seatbelt. South Carolina went by in a wash of fall colors and inside jokes, and it was a beautiful and fitting prelude to the organic sophistication that awaited us in Atlanta.

Atlanta swallows everything that drives into it, even a van as bloated as ours, so it’s fortunately that the overseers at Google Maps saw fit to give us the right directions for once. We managed to thread our van through the maze of downtown Atlanta like a pair of tweezers through a game of Operation!, ending up at the threshold of the Woodruff Center, residence of the Symphony Orchestra of Atlanta. Into the brightly-lit complex streamed a heterogeneous mix of hip urbanites, quiet folksters and, strangely enough, symphony season ticket holders, who passively bumped the mean age of attendees up past the 40 year mark. I could feel the seconds ticking down until the moment when I would begin to hear one of my favorite albums of all time played live, but everyone else milling around the lobby seemed under the effects of an anodyne.

The most intelligent amongst us bubbled ourselves within shields of our own excitement and plowed through the crowd to our seats. Mine was row M, right orchestra section; it turned out to be as perfect a place as any to experience the beauty of Joanna’s voice and the semi-holy synchronicity of the orchestra’s live backing. I’ll try to describe her performance in as scientific a way as possible, because my emotional reaction to “Only Skin” proves to be inarticulatable. From the opening note of “Emily”, the auxiliary band overpowered Joanna’s and voice, if only at the sound board. A more regrettable shame I’ve never been subjected to, as the five songs on Ys are truly five of the most memorable songs ever penned, but the case of the poor sound mixing is incontrovertible. My romantic expectations of how good the show would be based on how much I love the album made up for the bad sound balancing, so that I really enjoyed the show as much as I would have anyway, but many others in my coterie expressed dismay at the dominance of the banjo and drums over the harp, vocals and symphony. It seems those who are most familiar with Joanna’s music (or, at least her most recent LP) were those best prepared to enjoy her show, and the people who came with us who had the least amount of familiarity with her were the most upset by the poor sound.

Joanna’s voice, however improperly mixed, is still a religious experience. The symphony house became her monastery and the harp her altar. We, of course, played the part of the congregation with all due reverence. The sound came from speakers far smaller than those at usual indie rock shows, and any old asshole in the crowd could have ruined the show for everyone just by coughing. But the spectating mass was pristine and responsive at the right times. Throughout the first half of the performance, an air of formality reigned, as if no one wanted to look stupid in front of the arrayed musicians in their fancy suits. It wasn’t until after the intermission that things loosened up; Joanna and her band told more jokes, the songs were less stiffly performed, and people clapped more enthusiastically. A cursory oral survey immediately after the show revealed the highlights of the night to come from the second half, with most votes clustering around immaculate renditions of “Colleen” and the new untitled track, most commonly (but improperly) referred to as a variation on “Sweet Esame.”

Even though the less-than-perfect-but-still-damn-good Ys portion of the show was worth the price of admission, the chatter in the van on the ride to the post-show dinner was all about the second half. It’s interesting that the material that vaulted Newsom into the spotlight ended up shoved to the side in favor of her more esoteric, eclectic Milk-Eyed Mender tracks. The group consensus fell upon Joanna alone with her harp as the pinnacle of the night, with several opinions supporting each other in the belief that the entire night would have been improved had that been the prevailing arrangement instead of the setup of the encore.

The real encore was still to come, however. The ten of us met another few friends at The Majestic 24-hour diner, where conversation drifted from the stunning show to any number of myriad topics, related or not to music. As the waiters brought out the checks, however, they also brought to the table immediately behind us a small, focused group of quietly conversing people. It took only a few seconds for those positioned for the best view to spot Joanna Newsom among the group. Through serendipity, the star of the night sat down directly behind my chair. The following pictures attest to the sequence of events and the ultimate affect the experience had on me:

There’s little else I can say about the trip. It was one of the most fun concert experiences I’ve ever had, which is only partially explained by my love for Joanna Newsom. The memorability of the whole trip is tied to the group that went, which is as strong a testament as any I’ve seen to the power of mutual enthusiasm. It was also a hell of a lot of work to coordinate everyone’s schedules and gas fees and ticket reimbursements, but it was at least a hundred times more worth it.