Live Review: The Decemberists with the SF Symphony

It’s almost painfully cliché that it took an indie rock band for me to see the San Francisco Symphony for the first time.

And that it was the Decemberists—the cerebral folk-rock troupe from Portland who often cosplay as benighted raconteurs (and who, incidentally, I absolutely love)—that inspired the visit only adds to the cliché-ness of it all. But who cares about how ridiculously obvious the entire scene was—I had an absolute blast.

Sharing the platform with the San Francisco Symphony, led by conductor Edwin Outwater, the Decemberists were at their most baroque and theatrical—a high bar for a band famous for the song “I Was Meant for the Stage,” which they fittingly closed their show with on Friday night.

Colin Meloy, chief songwriter for the band, has always embraced sweeping, emotion-laden narratives, full of doomed romances, tragicomic characters and whimsical, Dickensian scenes. With that ambit in mind, few bands call for the kind of ambitious, majestic backing of a string symphony more than the Decemberists, and on Friday that picture perfect match was more than evident.

For the setlist, the group leaned on their more grand offerings, rising to the occasion of the setting by playing epic songs like “The Crane Wife 1 & 2,” “The Hazards of Love 4 (the Drowned),” and “The Infanta,” which opened the performance. 

Selecting pieces from throughout their lengthy discography, the band trotted out selections both old and new, performing tracks like “The Reapers” and "Rusalka, Rusalka / Wild Rushes" from their two most recent albums, while also playing "California One / Youth and Beauty Brigade" from their 2002 debut album, “Castaways and Cutouts.”

The 15 songs were split over two different sets, with the band playing two songs—"Down by the Water” and  “The Soldiering Life” without the symphony backing. Always unabashedly melodramatic, the band probably had little choice but to close out the night with “I Was Meant for the Stage,” their classic cut from 2003’s “Her Majesty, the Decemberists.” 

It all made perfect sense, proving again that sometimes the most obvious choice is the right one.