Before Christopher Owens and his seven-piece psychedelic folk band took the stage at Lincoln Hall Jan. 15, a member of Owens’s crew placed a vase filled with red and white roses on stage. When the lights dimmed at the end of his wrenchingly beautiful and intimate performance, Owens distributed these flowers to the first row of fans pinned against the stage, almost like a reward for coming and supporting his latest musical journey.
Earlier this year, Owens surprised many when he announced his abrupt departure from his indie garage rock band Girls. This show marked the beginning of his first tour for his conceptual solo album, Lysandre, which tells the story of Girls’ first world wide tour. The title takes its name from a woman, Lysandre, who Owens met and fell in love with at a French music festival. Musically, Lysandre is expansive, featuring a wide range of instrumentation including flutes, pianos and female backing vocals as well as a vast range of tones and thematic moods, from Renaissance sounding flutes (Lysandre’s Theme) to punk style rockers (New York) .
Owens took the stage following an opening set from fellow San Franciscans and sun soaked reverb poppers Melted Toys, and was met with rapturous applause. The stage was shrouded in blue light and fog, and Owens wasted no time in launching into the first number from the album, the melodic Lysandre’s Theme/Here We Go. He sat center stage for the majority of the performance, his eyes closed in concentration. While it had the makings of a dull and predictable performance, since Owens played the 30-minute album in full before launching into five encores, the album came alive on stage, with fans transported on Owens’s musical journey. Very rarely does an album sound better live than on record.
Highlights from the set included the rocker “New York,” with Owens exchanging guitar interplay with his electric guitarist, and it was one of the few times Owens emerged from his seated position, as well as “Part of Me” the closing standout song on the album. While he did not say a word the entire performance and rarely acknowledged the audience, his stoic presence was intriguing and showed a high level of self-confidence. Yet this stoic presence at times felt awkward and unnerving, as when audience members demanded Girls songs, he provided no response and instead silently moved on to the next song.
After playing the main set, the band returned for five encores, including Cat Stevens’s “Wild World,” Donovan’s “Lalena,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer,” The Everly Brothers’s “Let It Be Me” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.” These songs were perfect companion pieces to Lysandre, and it almost felt like Lysandre’s story continued through the encore, with “Wild World” feeling like the start of the tour described in Lysandre, and “Don’t Think Twice Its Alright” describing its end. Even though these covers offered little to no variations from the original versions, they also did not sound like mere covers, which might have been as a result of their subject matter and the passion and heart evident in Owens’s performance.
For Girls fans, as of right now, it looks like Christopher Owens has moved on, and to a certain extent, matured. His performance at Lincoln Hall showed a man, who believes whole-heartedly in his new musical journey and chooses not to dwell on the past. His show at left fans wanting more, and wondering what he will choose to do next.
