Academy, Manchester
In this era of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, you really wouldn't have put money on Oregon's Decemberists becoming huge. They play old-fashioned instruments ranging from piano, pedal steel and accordions to a funny gadget wound with a handle. They wear checked shirts, sing about the joys of chimney sweeping and hanging out the washing, and bespectacled singer/"song-crafter" Colin Meloy looks more like someone auditioning for the role of Clark Kent than a rock star. And yet, this tour seems them playing their biggest ever British venues, while their current album, The King Is Dead, went to No 1 in the US.
Partly, their success has been built on years of touring, but The King Is Dead signifies a gear change. Gone are the medieval quirks and 20-minute prog metal operas. In comes American classicism and simply beautiful songs. Meloy has stopped writing short stories and written from the heart.
The tour feels like a band savouring their moment. The lightshow is bigger and able to respond to Meloy's request to "make it blood red", while the singer is becoming quite the showman. He holds a mandolin above his head, conducts the singalongs and even compares Manchester to "the land of Oz, or Narnia", which must be a shock to anyone stumbling in from Oxford Road.
However, a two-hour set retains their individuality, with such oldies as The Rake's Song (about burying children) throwing dark into the light. Dividing the crowd into a choir of two halves shouting at each other feels too showbiz until Meloy announces, "That's what's happening in American politics right now", and blasts into This Is Why We Fight, a stirring rocker about how power is being taken from the unions.
The bizarre, poetry/violin-enhanced Mariner's Revenge – which seems to appeal most to that section of their audience who do drunken dances while wearing funny hats – finds Meloy making what must be one of the most bizarre requests ever delivered from a British stage. "I want you to make the sound of a multitude of people being swallowed by a whale," he asks the audience, and amazingly, they do.