Bon Iver

7:34pm – I pull into a parallel parking spot next to the student union that resembles a tiny spaceship, very fitting considering the cornfields surrounding Taylor, and five of us unfold out of my Honda Civic. We are listening to a copy of Bon Iver I illegally obtained almost five months before it was “officially” released. I have distributed this album, For Emma, Forever Ago, to at least 30 of my closest friends.

“I heard Bon Iver wrote the record in a log cabin in Paris after his girlfriend broke up with him,” my friend comments.

I imagine this happens frequently, people referring to Justin Vernon, Bon Iver’s front man, as Bon Iver. Much like Hootie in the ’90s. I still don’t know his real name.

“Actually, Bon Iver is French for good winter, and it’s pronounced bohn eevair, he recorded the album in Wisconsin,” I correct. My phone rings and a friend just cancelled on me. We arrive 45 minutes early because we want to make sure we get in and get good seats. Every friend with me at this point is named Matt, including the one who just cancelled.

7:39pm – We are standing at the ticket “booth” which is a coffee table between us and the two student workers. The Matts pay and I lean down on the table.

“Hi, I am supposed to have two tickets waiting for me that my friend pre-purchased.”
“What?”
“I have two tickets waiting for me … my name is Heath.”
“Who saved you the tickets?”
“My name is Heath, his name is Kyle.”
“So do you need a phone to call him to bring you the tickets?”
“No, he saved them with someone here.”
“What’s the name?”
“My name is HEATH, his name is Kyle.”
“We don’t have any … are you sure he saved them for you?”
She is conferring with her colleagues and none seem to have an answer. It’s a five-dollar-ticket so I reach for my wallet. We stand there as people are paying and moving through the line. “It’s really no big deal … we can pay.”
“Oh KYLE?”
“Ya.”
“Here, they’re in my back pocket … sorry I guess I zoned there for a minute.”

Since she is a student volunteer I neglect commenting. We walk through and find our friends, all named Matt, saving us seats next to other friends who are there.

7:47pm – It’s a good thing we got here so early because there’s about fifteen seats taken so far and we are in the second row. As my friend Matt points out though, “Where do all these indie kids come from in Indiana?”

Interesting note, I was expecting most people here to be wearing flannel shirts and beards. Instead they have the usual computer-programmer-meets-skateboarder-look that so many of them wear so well. I don’t care who is here to listen with me, I want to get the first band out of the way, Prayer Breakfast, and experience Bon Iver. I am anticipating an early Bob Dylan-esque performance, with “Bon Iver” sitting on a stool singing his falsetto songs, eyes closed, flannel shirt, beard, old guitar, work boots and worn jeans. Your standard singer-songwriter performance while people are sipping lattes and quietly listening.

8:13pm – There’s a girl behind me talking about her stupid tattoo that’s the size of a quarter and how bad it hurt when she got it, but she wants to get another one now because her parents are okay with the idea that her tattoos possess life. She continues to talk as she has for the previous 20 minutes or so. I assume she is here for the first band. I can’t think of anything I want to listen to less than her.

8:17pm – Prayer Breakfast walks onto the stage and all the indie kids everywhere in the room applaud for them. It all kind of makes sense. They’re not so bad the first couple of songs, obviously they spent their high school lives listening to Weezer’s blue album, but they aren’t terrible.

8:49pm – I’ve changed my mind and now I only want “Bon Iver” on his stool. Prayer Breakfast is too much for me.

8:57pm – I get up to get some tea and on my way back see three guys setting up the stage.

“Is that Bon Iver?”
“It’s Bohn Eevair,” my friend corrects me, “And yes … I think so.”

There are three guys moving things around, setting up microphones, chairs, guitars, drums, there are drums everywhere on stage, not just tucked behind the other instruments. They are laughing and making jokes like friends and I notice how huge Justin is, especially in contrast to his wingman Mike, who appears to be skipping grade school just to be there.

9:07pm – The stage is set, all the seats are filled, Bon Iver takes their seats and Justin speaks into the mic, “Thanks for having us here.”

His voice is so gravelly I almost don’t believe he’s actually the guy who wrote and recorded the songs on For Emma, Forever Ago. The band members all look at each other and the place is suddenly very still.

Not just quiet, more than quiet, like that feeling when you’re out in the woods on a summer evening, very late at night, and for a few moments there are no grasshoppers or birds, even the moon takes a deep breath. This is where I lose all track of time. It’s just a moment. Suddenly the rhythmic strum pattern to “Flume” begins, the opening track on his album, and his voice kicks in. No longer gravelly and deep like a seasoned smoker, but almost angelic in its attempts to reach out to the audience from what sounds like the last row of the choir loft in a huge catholic church. I realize very quickly that this will be much more than a talented singer-songwriter sitting alone on a stool.

Justin is not only playing and singing but keeping time on a kick drum. Mike fills in the ambiance on an electric and somehow manages to sing in perfect harmony with Justin’s vocals (because he hasn’t reached puberty I imagine to myself). The noise fills the room to the farthest corners, even masking the guys in the back room playing pool and talking. Everyone is singing along, almost every word I notice, which is hard to imagine because at times the lyrics are so inconspicuous and difficult to understand, almost as if he is singing in another language that prefers chanting to pronunciation. 150 people singing together in a small room easily drown out the performer, but Bon Iver is not one of those performers as we are all learning.

Lesser men than Justin would have stood to gain the power from their vocal chords and demand attention from the audience. Just like everything else about Bon Iver, he quietly sang the roof off the building from the chair he occupied. The lyrics have a simple way of knocking you to the floor. It seems now, in the midst of this show, the highs are higher and the lows are lower than they are on the record.

Songs that started with only the simple picking of a single note on the guitar ended with the drummer beating both sticks as hard as he could. They attempted to reach the heights of a Sigur Ros show and the depths of, well the depths of Bon Iver. The album does not even come close to displaying their music and emotion. They humbly moved through the songs in the exact same order they stand on the album. Justin stopped after the fifth song and laughed, “We’re pretty much just playing the entire album in the exact order it’s in … I don’t know if that’s really cool or super-lame.” Everyone laughed, “By the way, there are albums for sale in the back, but I’m sure you can find it for free online somewhere … thanks for being here.” And they moved onto track six and Justin even soloed for a minute or two in the middle of the song.

The end of the show came and he told us he didn’t know what to play for the last song. I yelled, “Stacks!” and he looked over at me and said, “Really?” It seemed only obvious that you would end the show the same way you end the album, plus Re: Stacks happens to be my favorite song. Then I felt apologetic because the rest of the band exited the stage and left Justin as the singer-songwriter alone on the stool. He scooted closer to the microphone and closed his eyes and sang the best Re: Stacks I’ve ever heard. He moved us all inside of that song and when he finished, that quietness returned to the room that had been there at the start, and everyone gently exhaled together.

Go see Bon Iver while you can still catch them playing coffee shops and student unions in the middle of cornfields. Don’t anticipate a quiet evening, although you won’t be able to remember the last time you were a part of something so still.

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