from tinymixtapes.com:

Devendra Banhart / Six Organs of Admittance
(Logan Square Auditorium; Chicago, IL)
11.14.04

by matty g

…I arrived at the Logan Square Auditorium just in time to wait an hour and a half for Ben Chasny, a.k.a. Six Organs of Admittance, to take the stage. Once he got up there, it was clear why he was tardy: he was completely drunk. While I’m a fan of Six Organs, I was not exactly looking forward to watching Chasny stumble through a haphazard set of fumbling fingers and drunken slurs. But here’s the amazing thing: even in his inebriated state, Chasny gave an incredible performance. Instead of fumbling, his fingers danced on the fretboard and frolicked on the strings with almost inhuman ability. His voice was, well his voice was Ben Chasny’s. His singing has been a dividing line since Compathia; listeners either like it or they don’t. Personally, I enjoy it, and his drunken slur somehow complimented his singing rather well.

The end of his set was the most interesting part. The drink had obviously taken complete hold of Chasny by this point, and he proceeded to place his acoustic guitar against the amp to vibrate the stings and create some exquisite feedback. He then grabbed the microphone and wailed over the wall of sound while the audience just stood there in shock. It was at once both emotionally intense and completely ridiculous, which is exactly the way I like my performances.

Once Chasny was though with whatever the hell it was he was doing, the ever enigmatic Devendra Banhart walked on stage with his guitar. He sat in a chair and ran though a few solo numbers before he launched into a strange interlude where he rambled about a “white buffalo.” This was the cue for the band to take the stage. That’s right, the band. The rest of the show was played out with Andy Cabic of Vetiver on acoustic guitar, Viking Moses on bass, Noah Georgeson of The Pleased on electric guitar, and [Jimi Hey] on drums . Together they made up White Buffalo Deer Woman Appears, which explains what the hell Devendra was talking about before they took the stage.

If you thought Banhart’s songs were amazing before, wait until you hear them backed by a full band. It breathed new life into songs that were already overflowing with energy, re-imagined them, and took them to some higher level, well beyond the scope of mere mortals. Highlights came by way of “Will Is My Friend” and “This Beard Is for Siobh?°n”, which ended in the entire crowd hopping up and down and shouting: “REALGOODTIMEAGOODTIMEAREALGOODTIME.”

Towards the middle of the set, the band took the time to play a rousing rendition of “Amour Fou” by Vetiver, and then turned it over to Viking Moses for two songs, who nearly stole the show. Donned with a garland of flowers, his booming voice was truly amazing, as he ran around the stage with his arms flailing. If I would have had any extra money, I would have bought everything he had.

Right before they launched into a new song for the encore, Devendra said something to the extent of “this is your stage too, so feel free to come up here.” Needless to say, as soon as they started playing people rushed to the stage, myself included. Within a few minutes, you couldn’t tell who was part of the band and who wasn’t. Those who weren’t playing an instrument (several audience members grabbed guitars and percussion do-dads), danced and grooved like there was no tomorrow. Afterwards, a completely euphoric vibe was in the air, and everyone, audience and band alike, smiled and hugged and exchanged words of praise and friendship and love. And this wasn’t some phony neo-hippy thing; everyone was genuinely in love with each other and everything around them. It’s as if Devendra cast a spell on everyone with his music. Actually, I wouldn’t put that past him. Who knows what he’s capable of? I have a feeling we’ve only seen a hint of his true power.