By Eric Mahollitz

Both of last nights bands hail from Brooklyn and share a keen interest in visual performance. Clare Muldaur Manchon and her band, The Reasons, this time consisting of husband Olivier Manchon, Marla Hansen and Maria Jeffers, took the stage adorned in their favorite red attire. The stage was bathed in a similar red light and the crowd sat awkwardly silent as the band fittingly started the set with the subtle strings and lulling vocals of “Open, Open.” With the initial “who are these people” sensation out of the way, the crowd left the seats, moving closer to the stage for a very intimate, dynamic and alluring performance. While the band’s standard fare is built from violin, viola, cello and electric guitar, they easily made use of everything from drum machines to tambourine, from kazoos to recorders. Olivier, the band’s multi-instrumentalist and lone Frenchman, was thoroughly endearing throughout the night, himself responsible for playing the recorder on set highlight, “Rodi,” as well as the saw on the space-age “Pluton,” an ode to the fickle status of the distant…object. More on him later. Admittedly, with all the different and unconventional instruments appearing onstage, it would be easy to paint the group as relying too much on gimmicks, but their playfulness and theatricality seem as much a part of their show as the music. That being said, the young band pulled off a fabulous though again, unconventional, indie rock/cabaret performance, topped off with a cover of Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”

Clare & The Reasons Setlist:

Open, Open / Pluto / Alphabet City / Better Without You / Pluton / Rodi / Nowhere / Can Your Car Do That, I Don’t Think So / Everybody Wants to Rule the World

As both of the night’s acts use a multitude of different musicians for different situations, they were conveniently able to use the same musicians for both sets, simply switching Clare Manchon for My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden. This time around, the band was clad primarily in black, the costumes more elaborate than The Reasons. Worden immediately showed off her own non-traditional toys, playing finger piano on a lively rendition of “Apples” and pulling out all the stops on “To Pluto’s Moon” and “The Ice & The Storm.” Both tracks enlisted trip-hop influenced beats and tube shakers. MBDs performance was not without its storytelling either, incorporating spoken narratives before flushing out “From the Top of the World” and the Maurice Ravel inspired “Black & Costaud.” Perhaps most memorable from Worden’s set were the visuals. With musical accompaniment and much fanfare Olivier, dressed much like a magician, dangled a purple kerchief before the crowd moments before making it disappear into his clenched fist. The core of the set ended with a puppet show initially seen only as an abstract projection on a screen and then ultimately revealed. The puppet show involved the whole band and featured a female doll resembling Worden who endured shipwreck, romance, flights of fancy, and ultimately separation.

The puppet show over, the band left the stage only to come back moments later to provide some conclusion to the evening. That conclusion took the form of A Thousand Shark’s Teeth b-side “The Gentlest Gentleman,” a now popular live track featuring nothing but Worden on ukelele and the collective harmonizing of the entire band. The simple, spare and affecting track brought Worden to tears halfway through, forcing a brief pause but after reaching its natural conclusion, and with the flick of a tear, the show was over. It was the final night on the tour for viola player and Madison native Marla Hansen. However, both bands continue on, touring through mid-December. For those who haven’t seen an MBD show, Worden’s operatic voice and training in costuming and theatre are a treat to behold and never as predictable as most musical performances.

My Brightest Diamond Setlist:

Golden Star / If I Were Queen / Apples / To Pluto’s Moon / Disappear / Dragonfly / From the Top of the World / Black & Costaud / The Ice & The Storm / Inside A Boy
Encore: The Gentlest Gentleman

Previously: 5 Questions with My Brightest Diamond
Previously: 5 Questions with Marla Hansen

Myspace: My Brightest Diamond
Myspace: Clare & The Reasons
MP3: My Brightest Diamond – “Inside A Boy”
MP3: My Brightest Diamond – “The Diamond”
MP3: My Brightest Diamond – Golden Star (Remix by Alias)
MP3: My Brightest Diamond – Freak Out (Gold Chains Panique Mix)