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| Battle of the "Experts" How close to the truth are documentaries, really? Russell Bartholomee and Cari Crosby discuss. |
| Globetrotting Over the pond we go to Liverpool, home to much more than just The Beatles. |
| Been There This month's concert moment: Andrew Bird's dazzling violin and genre-bending act wows the audience at a New Pornographers concert. |
| Watching the Music A low-budget MTV contest submission proves to be a fitting visual for Sonic Youth's "Swimsuit Issue". |
| Whatever Happened To... XTC was once one of Britain's premier pop/rock bands. Being There's Shel Desormeaux does her best to track them down! |
| 9 x 5 Our contributors pick five things they're digging this month. |
The Moment: "Eugene" is performed by Andrew Bird’s Bowl Of Fire. Venue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, February 23, 2001.
In 
our past two issues, this column has focused on songs that the contributor already knew and loved before going to the featured concert. I suspect they went in hoping that the artist would play those songs, and were delighted when they did. Not only had I never heard “Eugene” before the night of February 23, 2001, I hadn’t heard of the artist who wrote and performed the song, Andrew Bird. But the moment I heard it will forever be etched in my memory as one of my most enjoyable concert moments.
I didn’t quite know what to expect when I agreed to see The New Pornographers with my friend and fellow contributor Adam M. Anklewicz. He had played me their CD, Mass Romantic, earlier in the week. I thought it was alright, and the show was relatively cheap, so I agreed to join him. Besides, Neko Case would be there. How could I pass that up?
The New Pornographers played an enjoyable set. It paled in comparison to the show’s opening act: a bizarre outfit called Andrew Bird’s Bowl Of Fire. The group sounded like a cross between jazz, European folk music, and The B-52’s (the latter partially due to to the involvement of the talented and charismatic Nora O’Connor). Of course, having no idea as to who Andrew Bird was or what he was going to play, I had yet to form these conclusions for myself.
And so, the lights go down and a man of about thirty takes the stage carrying a violin. This is Andrew Bird. With a scarf wrapped around his neck, he looked like a French bohemian, Bird begins to play the high register of the violin like a Baroque virtuoso before his band (comprised of drums, bass, and guitar) produces an accentual effect and launches into the opening section of a song that hooked the audience immediately. I was perplexed. I could not pin down the style of music, but the violin solo seemed to fuse elements of gypsy music and vaudeville. An instrumental set, then? No. After his impressive display of instrumental talent, he briefly stopped playing the violin and began to sing about things that I had never heard anyone sing about: "Studies have shown/That we like sheep are prone/To sure fatal doses/Of malcontent through osmosis/But don’t be sympathetic/Just pass the anaesthetic/Because sheep are benign/And on the young we will dine.” These lyrics were heavy. And here I thought this guy was just a violinist.
For a too-brief set, Andrew Bird continued to delight the audience with his genre-bending and rule breaking (he played the violin like a guitar on a few songs) performance. In perspective, “Eugene” served as the perfect introduction to an underrated performer, one I was sure to catch later in the year, when he returned with the Bowl Of Fire to perform a small but musically tremendous headlining show.
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