Fans of Andrew Bird are a smart lot. They’re fans of multiple NPR programs, they can locate more than one Canadian province on a map and, most impressively they can enjoy the human whistle as a leading instrument in a pop song.
And, so, Andrew Bird fans will constitute the entire audience of the documentary/concert film Andrew Bird: Fever Year, a chronicle of Bird’s lengthy stints on the road in 2009, a prolific series of gigs that found him ill for a bulk of the year due the heady touring and emotional/physical/spiritual tolls meted out by said gigging. Now, you’ll learn all this within the first 20-minutes of Fever Year, after which the message is simply reinforced. Again and again and again, until the work’s full 80 minutes have passed.
Whether the project began as a documentary of Bird, or as a concert chronicle of his incessant 2009 show calendar, well, it’s hard to say, exactly. But what’s obvious is that director Xan Aranda decided that splitting the difference was the best way to go. The film’s formula is fairly direct: either just Bird, or Bird and his full band, play a song, probably in the concert setting, possibly while recording. After the completion of said song, Bird says a few words about creating music/playing live shows/or feeling sick/isolated/concerned about his performance/songwriting/continual illness. Then another song is performed. Followed by a few more words from Bird, usually given at a ratio of three minutes of music for every minute of chatter. At times, Aranda busts the template by featuring a bandmate in the interstitial interviews; unlike Bird, who tends to look into the mid-space just beyond the camera operator, the featured bandmate instead shuffles his feet/looks self-conscious/mumbles something about how hard/intense/round-the-clock a Bird tour can be.
In the small amount of time not spent on a concert stage or recording studio, cameras linger on things like a pair of shoes sitting on a shoerack, or an elevator moving the contents of his touring company. These moments are obviously indicative of loneliness/monotony/repetition found on extensive concert tours. We know this because we’re reminded of this mood/aesthetic/ennui by these stark recurrent images. As well as by people telling us, again and again and again, that touring can be a drag. After a while, we get the message, but this doesn’t stop the film from telling one/two/three more times for good measure.
We’re also told this: touring can also be wonderful! See, Fever Year reminds us that playing to a live audience can be exciting/rewarding/enriching, because it allows musicians to connect with fans/test out material in a new context/and make said musicians enough money to live on farms. Even when those musicians whistle on most of their tracks, they can make such a lifestyle happen. This seems impossible, but is true.
Andrew Bird is a touring and recording musician. Who was sick on his 2009 tour; like, all of it. And who plays theatre-sized venues, to audiences of intelligent/interesting/well-dressed white people in their 30s/who wear glasses/and who overthink. Andrew Bird, it’s hinted, is this close to superstardom and he will be a superstar once: he scores a Subaru commercial/nails the closing credit theme for a Wes Anderson film/the rest of America starts listening to NPR. These are our theories, and they’re not implicitly stated by the film.
But if you’re an Andrew Bird fan, you know all this already. And you don’t need to continue reading here, as you should be making plans to attend the Webster University showing of this tedious/exhausting/navel-gazing documentary/concert film/mash note to Bird.
The rest of us can safely know that the film exists, without the need to take any action, whatsoever, aside from avoiding this film, at all costs.
Fever Year screens Saturday, November 19th, 8 p.m. at the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the Webster University campus. Tickets are $12, $10 for Cinema St. Louis Members. For advance tickets, call 314-725-6555, ext. 0, or visit cinemastlouis.org.
