Music

Despite illness and injury, Okkervil River in Concert

by Michelle Yu

Tuesday November 29, 2005

Standing across the room, Okkervil River frontman Will Robinson Sheff looks not so much the part of a blossoming rock star as much as very young. When he picks a guitar and begins to sing though, there is no denying his artistic presence.

As words like "And when I killed her / It was so easy / That I wanted to kill her again," from the first-person murder fiction "Westfall" (Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone You See, Jagjaguwar 2004), drift from Sheff’s mouth, something ancient and earnest and eternally lonely falls with them. All previous notions are erased; Sheff becomes enchanting.

On Nov. 12th, Williamsburg’s Northsix featured Okkervil River with opening acts Charles Bissel (of the Wrens) and Man Man. The show was the 21st slated on the band’s nationwide No Key, No Plan tour. The tour had been burdened with a number of problems, including Sheff coming down with strep throat and drummer Travis Nelson breaking a wrist (he still played). In spite of these afflictions and in spite of having toured almost daily since mid-October, Okkervil were lively and charming.

On a number of tracks the band played with arrangements notably, taking liberties from the album versions. The result was a beautiful set that opened with "The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His…," included "It Ends With a Fall," "Red," "The War Criminal Rises and Speaks," "A Stone," "Black," "Westfall" and a four-song encore that ended with a gorgeous and energetic rendition of "Okkervil River Song."

Okkervil River hail from and speak for the music scene in Austin, Texas. It is possible to classify them under easy categories like alt-country or folk, but their music is so layered with creaks and moans and strange winds that it is more tempting to just think of them as something that just appeared without influence and without intent. Sheff pens the sort of songs that make you believe in a past filled with drownings and fields and ghosts.
The most recent released from Okkervil River is Black Sheep Boy (Jagjaguwar 2005).

To learn more about the band and see tour information, visit http://jound.com/okkervil.