The Avett Brothers perform at the Coachella festival in April 2007 The Avett Brothers: This is what they looked like at Coachella in 2007; they were a little cozier in the NPR offices. Karl Walter/Getty Images
 

by Linda Holmes

I'm never sure whether to assume those of you who make it here are also keeping up with the goings-on at NPR Music, but if you're not tuning in to the Tiny Desk Concert series, I feel compelled to make sure you don't miss it.

The way Tiny Desk Concerts work is that a band comes in to the NPR offices and plays at the desk of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. That's it -- a band and Bob's desk and a few songs. (It's maybe the single most profoundly NPR-ian thing that has ever been invented.)

They've recently posted a performance by The Avett Brothers, which I happened to be in the office to see live -- from my prime spot about three feet from the cellist's elbow.

I can honestly tell you that it was one of the greatest things I've ever seen live. It's hard to explain the visceral effect of a fantastic band that is not separated from you by amplifiers. And it made me think of the other performance I usually describe this way, which was a December 2007 show from The Swell Season, fresh off the success of Once, at the Beacon Theater in New York.

Guitars with holes, and a question for you, after the jump...

It was one of those things that was so good that I kept being distracted by my need to list, in my head, all the people I wished were there to see it. And interestingly, it began with Glen Hansard (about whom I will only admit, as I have since 2005, that I have no defense against that demographic) coming to the front edge of the stage to sing with just that guitar with the giant hole in it, without a microphone.

Maybe I resent electronics.

So it seemed like the right moment to ask you to ponder, on a Monday afternoon when you are likely very far removed from wonderful live performances, about your favorite one ever. Most perfect experience, top to bottom. Maybe it's partly the company, maybe it's the setting, maybe it's the precise moment in your life in which it takes place. Might be theater, might be music, might be something else.

But it has to be live -- the draw of these tales, to me, is that you can never really share them with anyone who wasn't there. They might get a chance to see something similar, but not quite the same thing you saw when, say, the cello was close enough that you were afraid you'd get brushed with the bow.

categories: Music

1:31 - June 22, 2009

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