Megafaun @ The Band Room
A journey to the average gig normally leads into the heart of a city. Traveling to the Band Room, the opposite happens - we drove away from York into the heart of Ryedale, through pitch darkness and down into a valley where the village of East Farndale nestles. More by luck than judgment we found the venue - a corrugated iron shack described by some as 'the greatest small venue on Earth'. Half an hour later a local 15-year old girl climbs onto the tiny stage and plays a short set of acoustic numbers. She's confident and talented. Her mum and dad are in the audience. Big rounds of applause throughout. Then Megafaun takes over - three impressively-hirsute gents from North Carolina. Having played considerably bigger venues throughout their tour, they're clearly overwhelmed by the intimacy of this little hall - every song is punctuated by banter along the lines of 'we love the people and the countryside here, and this is the best gig we've ever done.'
The band plays intimate music - full of wonderful harmonies, intricate percussion and moments of free-form ambience - so it's well suited to the venue, where kids play on the floor and the crowd drink their own booze mere feet from the stage. Megafaun's sound is hard to pin down - a mix of folk ('freak folk' apparently) and alt.country (largely influenced by Appalachian Old Time music) shot through with sonic and rhythmic experimentation. The obvious comparison is Fleet Foxes, but they're closer to the likes of Akron / Family, and often veer into more left-field psychedelic territory reminiscent of Animal Collective; maybe even the jazzy end of Comets on Fire.
Accompanying the music were jokes about ZZ Top, a spot-on Jim Morrison impression, Neil Young and Dylan covers, a good old-fashioned sing-along and a lot of love between audience and band - who were warm, engaging and unpretentious. Everything you want from a gig basically. There is indeed something magical about the Band Room, and I'd urge anyone to get down there and experience it for themselves. If their enthusiasm is anything to go by, I suspect Megafaun will also be back one day (so try to catch them too.) My gig of the year.
Posted by monoman at 06:20 PM on December 05, 2009
