Andrew Bird

[photo from flickr]

I adore him. He was surprisingly good live, very different and more dynamic. Because his sound is so layered he used a looping machine for a lot of it, which was cool. He had these huge gramophone things tht apparently are speakers connected to the looping system. He played a lot of stuff from his new album Noble Beast which is growing on me. I'm a fan of Mysterious Production of Eggs from 2005. But luckily he played a few songs from that and Armchair Apocrypha.

We were wondering what his musical training is, because although he is proficient on tons of instruments (violin, guitar, mandolin, xylophone, singing, and whistling), his style is distinctly not classical. Wikipedia has informed me that he was trained with the Suzuki violin method from age four. I took Suzuki violin when I was young and it's based on playing by ear. That could be part of the reason why Niki noticed his technique wasn't that of a typical classical violinist since he never moved out of first position. Still, he did graduate from Northwestern University in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in violin performance. A great article from the NYTimes Sunday Magazine last month has more info about him.

Just watching him play, you can tell he loves what he is doing and is just brimming with talent. He is also world-class whistler. Not to mention that he's seriously not bad looking. And he has a lucky sock monkey that he takes with him on tour. Adorable.