It's fortunate, then, TwiRoPa is an example of truly excellent innovation. It's a converted warehouse that's clearly designed to appeal to the artsy/indie rock audience, and it fills a void in concert booking that had previously defaulted to the execrable House of Blues. While there are a few other club options in town, none really felt like a venue that had forward-thinking, independent music in mind. TwiRoPa feels a great deal like New York's great Lower East Side clubs, The Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge: utilitarian, but with a long lived-in feel to them, both comfortable and unpretentious, with enough space for the scenesters to have some elbow room at most shows, but spacious enough to accommodate the upper echelon of indie stardom (Interpol or Spoon would pack the place, but everybody who wanted to see them in town would probably fit).

Obviously, indie rock darlings The Decemberists were a perfect fit for TwiRoPa. They played to a crowd of maybe three hundred very responsive (and to my eyes, very young) hipsters, and a good time was had by all. The opening act was a singer/songwriter named Willy Mason; I arrived just as she was finishing her set, accompanied by four of the Decemberists on second guitar, bass, drums and organ. I didn't see enough to form a solid opinion of her gifts, but she seemed pretty decent and the crowd was clearly on her side.

After a half-hour break, the Decemberists took the stage and proceeded to rock out in their vaguely anachronistic and extremely polite way. One of the things that I felt I should have known about this band, having seen a number of pictures of them and having read our interview, is how endearingly geeky their onstage presence is. It's not quite a full-on They Might Be Giants dorkathon, but it's not all that far off, either. It's not just the matching, vaguely French Revolution-y tan tops they all wore, paired with red bandannas. It's not the quirky mixture of instrumentation (including accordion, banjo, upright bass and pedal steel, among others). It's not just lead singer Colin Meloy's literate, short-story-style songs of misfits and historical curiosities. It's all of these things, plus a dollop of "wow, I can't believe we're on stage, and people are here to see us; how cool is that?" It's impossible not to like these folks from the moment they take the stage, and it becomes impossible to ignore once they're there.

The Decemberists haven't been around for long enough for their set lists to make some sort of statement about their stylistic history; in addition, their quality level is so high that whatever set of tracks they elect to play would to sound like a greatest hits selection. On this night, they ran through a set that included a number of clear crowd pleasers, including "Los Angeles I'm Yours", "Song for Myla Goldberg", "Leslie Anne Levine", "California One Youth and Beauty Brigade", "From My Own True Love (Lost At Sea)" and "We Both Go Down Together". The band's renditions of each of these tracks were excellent, nimbly balancing between the need to capture the magic of the well-loved recorded versions and the necessity of re-energizing those tracks for live performance.

Even in the midst of a generally excellent performance, two tracks stood out. The first was "The Sporting Life", from the band's latest album, Picaresque. On the album, it's definitely a head-nodder, but something about this confessional, vaguely ironic, wistful, yet awkward and painful story of athletic ineptitude issuing from Meloy's lips, right there on stage, made the experience related in the song seem more immediate, empathetic and funny. The bouncy Gene Krupa drumline anchoring the piece, the band's buoyant attitude, and the song's sheer rose-colored glasses charm had to be seen to be believed. Deeply memorable.

The night's second standout was violinist and vocalist Petra Haden's astonishing cover of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights". Haden's voice, thin and clear, served as a perfect stand-in for Bush, and the Decemberists' backup made the track feel far more organic than the original version. The audience was rapt, the song was perfect.

Overall, quite a nice evening of music in New Orleans.

Article and photos by Brett McCallon