The Back Pockets, August 26, 2011, 529, Atlanta

The Back Pockets played 529 in East Atlanta Village last night, part of something called Nophest.

They opened their set with The Break-Up Song, singer and bandleader Emily Kempf wandering through the audience as she sang (or at least as far as her microphone cord would allow her).  She was lovely in a white, lacey dress, but as with most Back Pockets show, no one stayed fully dressed for long, and Ms. Kempf stripped down to a black bustier by the second song, and kicked off what was left of the dress by the third song.

The last time I saw The Back Pockets, they were playing at The Earl, opening for Dent May and Real Estate.  I was only capable at that time of taking my obligatory and largely unloved treated cell phone pictures, but tonight, my new Canon SX230 came through like a champion, despite challenging lighting, even for some close-ups.

After last month's show, I described the band as a sort of "art-damaged Frankenstein amalgam of tUnE-yArDs and the B-52s, brought to life by a winking Kevin Barnes (of Of Montreal). To triangulate this delightful strangeness, toss in some Freelance Whales instrumentation, the communal spirit of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and a potentially unhealthy obsession with furries."  The comparisons still hold.  Here's a video that I found of the band in performance to give the uninitiated an idea of the level of artistic insanity The Back Pockets typically produce:

Here's a portrait of the lovely Ms Kempf from last night's performance:

And here's the equally alluring back-up (and occasional lead) singer, Haley Murphy:

Of course, at every Back Pockets show, there's always some interesting things that are kind of hard to explain going on right around the interface between the stage and the crowd, that invisible plane between the performers and the audience.

For some reason, someone set up a little plant nursery in a corner by the stage during the set, first watering some potted plants beneath a  grow-light, and then placing the pots all over the stage and around the audience.  Meanwhile, two dancers writhed around on the floor and wrapped each other up with yarn.  But no matter how trippy the extra-curriculars got, the band still played on.

This evening, they played without a guitarist, but like at The Earl last month, their instrumentation included a violin and a trombone, and they were able to fill in the otherwise empty spaces.  Ms. Kempf initially played keyboards, but eventually switched over to harmonium.

Later, she picked up a banjo.

Toward the end of their set, they played their song, Bulla:

Here's a neat little video in which Ms. Kempf explains a little bit about the Back Pockets process:

So, as with every Back Pockets show, the evening ended with the audience playing along with drumsticks on the floor, walls, a plastic water jug, and anything else they could find to bang on, as confetti flew in the air, and the ladies on stage screamed and worked themselves and the band into a frenzy.  

A splendid time was had by all.