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“Oh my God. It’s Full of Stars” A Weekend with Mercury Rev By: Jason Nummer, May 2005  It had been nearly
three years since Metro Detroit Mercury Rev fans weren’t required to
head out of the country to see the band. Over the past weekend,
lead singer Jonathan Donahue, guitarist Grasshopper and company finally
put a stop to this nonsense by playing two sold out shows at the Vic in
Chicago and the Majestic Theater in Detroit. For their first US tour since 2001’s sixteen date run in support of All is Dream (later followed by four West Coast shows in June 2002), Mercury Rev was set to spend May supporting Doves for sixteen US stops. Just days before the first show was to launch in San Francisco, Doves singer Jimmy Goodwin lost his voice forcing the band to cancel the first half of this much anticipated dual bill. Mercury Rev was quick to reschedule their own headlining gigs in four of the eight cancelled cities while waiting for the Doves to rejoin the tour in Chicago on a rainy Friday the 13th. When the lights finally faded in both Chicago and Detroit, a slideshow began on the huge curtain set up on the back wall of the stage. The first slide was the familiar “Stereo 35MM” logo that has appeared on and off of Mercury Rev’s albums since 1991’s Yerself is Steam. The slides then alternated between the band’s own imagery and album cover art of their inspirations such as The Talking Heads, Beethoven, The Rolling Stones and Count Basie. From the moment the slide show ended and Mercury Rev took the stage, each ran without a hitch. The band worked through 10 songs in Chicago and 11 songs in Detroit during their all too short one-hour allotment. Backed by a new film made up of quotations, landscapes and moving images, the five-piece touring band makeup played with a heightened energy perfectly complimenting the new lighter feeling from their latest release, The Secret Migration. Seeing this reminded me of how the dark atmospheres from the 2001 Toronto/Detroit shows  mirrored the
murky, wonderful sounds of All is
Dream and 1998’s Deserter’s
Songs. Those shows are also remembered for the eerily
paranoid looking Jonathon Donahue who rarely smiled and often times
straddled his microphone stand for balance due to how jittery he
was. It was even noted how he had an ashtray affixed to said mic
stand thanks to his heavy amount of on stage smoking. When
Donahue did leave his post back then, it was either to play guitar,
“conduct” the band, attempt flight by mimicking wings, single out and
stare down audience members or to play a saw with a violin bow.
The 2005 Donahue still straddles the microphone stand and does most of
those other things, but seems much more happy while doing it – an
immediate reflection of his positive lyrics from Migration. In
Chicago, Donahue even momentarily matched the poses of a ballet dancer
being shown on the film backdrop while in Detroit he started the show
with a bottle of wine in hand and huge grin on his face. He also
got rid of the thin, half tucked button down shirt used in 2001 in
favor of a new suit (although the jacket only lasts about four
songs). The sets at both shows were made up of material written between 1998-present and even left room for an unexpected cover of Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”. Each night opened with two Migrations tracks: “Secret for a Song” followed by “Black Forest (Lorelei)”. From there, both shows saw a similar setlist excluding Chicago getting “The Funny Bird” while Detroit was treated to “Goddess on a Hiway” and an extended version of “In the Wilderness”. "Goddess" may have been an on the spot decision by the band since it was the only song out of both nights that didn’t seem to have matching film stock prepared. Complimented by words of wisdom from E.T., Astronaut David Bowman (2001: A Space Odyssey) and Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Rocky Horror Picture Show) displayed in the background, each night drew to a conclusion very loudly with All is Dream’s opener “The Dark is Rising” complete with Donahue flexing his muscles to much audience response during the song’s last line, “In my dreams I’m always strong”. As all five members took multiple bows, the fact there could be no encore made things all the more bittersweet. In short, 2005 brings a much more animated and lively Mercury Rev to the stage. Whatever cheered up Donahue over the last few years has only improved a band that didn’t need to make any adjustments in the first place. And if anything was made clear from the reaction of most audience members, it was that Mercury Rev is now officially long over due for their own headlining US tour. The Vic Theater- Chicago, IL – 5/13/05 Secret for a Song Black Forest (Lorelei) Tonight it Shows Tides of the Moon The Funny Bird Diamonds Opus 40 > Gotta Serve Somebody (Dylan) Holes Dark is Rising  The Majestic Theater – Detroit, MI – 5/14/05 Secret for a Song Black Forest (Lorelei) Opus 40 > Gotta Serve Somebody (Dylan) Tonight it Shows Tides of the Moon Diamonds Holes Goddess on a Hiway In The Wilderness (extended) Dark is Rising  Doves played with
Mercury Rev Saturday night
All photos by Matt Caruana
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