Neutral Milk Hotel Played Albuquerque's Kiva Auditorium with Elf Power, 4/17/14

Do-Over

Last night I got a second chance. Back in January, right around my birthday, I got a nasty bout of the flu that prevented me from heading into Jersey City to see Neutral Milk Hotel. Brooklyn What frontman and Jersey Beat columnist, Jamie Frey, used my tickets that night and did a review of the show, while I sat home spinning cuts from my Neutral Milk Hotel vinyl box set.

A few months later, while planning our trip to New Mexico to visit CoolMom's dad, I went hunting for shows that we could see while we had built-in babysitting. And right there, smack in the middle of our stay, was a stop by Neutral Milk Hotel in Albuquerque, just 20 minutes from where we were staying. I jumped on tickets.

We left the cooldaughters with their grandparents and headed into the city for the show. After a few beverages, we headed into the Albuquerque Convention Center's Kiva Auditorium. There was a small merch table selling t-shirts, records, and tote bags. Sadly, I didn't find any copies of the show poster for sale.

We made our way into the auditorium. The 2300-seat, single-level space reminded me a bit of a high-school auditorium -- no painted ceilings or cornices, no elaborately detailed curtains. It was just a comfortable, nondescript, utilitarian performance space. We sat in a relatively sparsely populated section at stage left.

Neutral Milk Hotel's fellow Elephant 6 alum and 1998 tour partner, Elf Power, started the evening at about 8:10. They played a 45-minute set that covered everything from their 1995 debut through to 2013's Sunlight on the Moon. The crowd were very receptive to Elf Power's jangly, neo-psychedelic pop; but the seated show aspect of the evening seemed to exert a bit of a drain on the crowd's overall energy. This is no knock on the band who played an excellent set and managed to get more than a few folks out of their seats.

At precisely 9:30, the house lights dimmed; and a thin and bearded Jeff Mangum walked onto the stage to adoring cheers from the crowd. He launched into a solo version of "Two Headed Boy," and the now standing crowd sang along. As the song ended, the rest of Neutral Milk Hotel joined Mangum for instrumental, "The Fool." The band completed the three-song section from In the Aeroplane over the Sea with "Holland, 1945."

It was an interesting contrast to the solo Mangum show I saw at The Paramount back in 2011. At that show, Mangum -- clean shaven and playing his acoustic guitar -- remained seated for the entire set. We were left humming the well-known horn or singing saw parts ourselves. Last night's full-band arrangements, featuring those horns and saws along with banjos, keys, bass, and drums, fleshed out those familiar songs. Mangum stood the entire time and moved with the music. Scott Spillane and Julian Koster moved and mouthed the words right along with Mangum all night; while Albuquerque native, Jeremy Barnes, was a force behind the drums.

Other, earlier, non-Aeroplane releases also received attention last night. The set included On Avery Island tracks "A Baby for Pree," "Gardenhead," "Naomi," and a raucous version of "Song Against Sex" that roused everyone from their seats who had been sitting mesmerized by Mangum's solo acoustic delivery of "Oh, Comely." We also got EP cuts like "Everything Is" and "Ferris Wheel on Fire."

The songs from In the Aeroplane over the Sea, though, got the loudest receptions. "I ask you all to sing with me now," said Mangum as the band started "King of Carrot Flowers, Parts 1, 2, & 3." The theater erupted in song, and that continued right through "In the Aeroplane over the Sea."

Following the 1-hour main set, the band returned to the stage for "Ghost" and the instrumental "(untitled)." Mangum gave us a solo "Two Headed Boy, Part Two," and the band returned to send us off with "Engine" from the Ferris Wheel on Fire EP.

I'm glad I got a second chance to see Neutral Milk Hotel as a full band. I didn't get as emotional as I thought I would; but I attribute that to the generally more upbeat, less church-like feeling of the full-band concert versus the intimate solo set. And the show never felt like a cynical reunion tour. Instead, Mangum and the band gave the audience honest and sincere renditions of songs that still mean a great deal to so many people.