Dirty Projectors Invite Eager Fan On Stage at New Yorker Festival

Posted on Oct 17th 2009 9:00AM by Liz Colville
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Brooklyn's Dirty Projectors, headlining at the New Yorker Festival's Brooklyn Playlist event at the Bell House Friday night, faced a couple of challenges, including the task of following up the raucous crunk of fellow borough residents House of Ladosha and a sound glitch. Luckily, the crowd made them feel at home.

"You look like librarians," one fan called from the back of the room, adding, for clarification, "I love it!" Longtime band member Angel Deradoorian, who sings and plays bass and keys, responded smoothly, "That's because we work as librarians in the daytime."

Soon, an appropriately cardigan-wearing fan from Michigan, whose cries of "Yeah!" resounded from all corners of the venue, got a little band attention himself.

His vocal efforts were enough to get him invited up on stage by lead singer Dave Longstreth. The audience laughed at this prospect. "No, I'm serious," Longstreth said. So the fan clambered up and approached the mic. With slurring speech, he managed a touching, if rambling, tribute to the band, explaining that he'd been turned on to their music by a friend two weeks earlier. If the audience was accused of having bad taste in music by their grandchildren, he added, they could point to the Dirty Projectors.

Accidentally calling the music "tasteless" instead of "timeless," the fan continued to profess his admiration, or excuse his inebriation, into Longstreth's ear. The singer politely said, "Thank you" into the mic, and the fan eventually went on his way, but not without audience members and photographers snapping ample photos of the event.

Longstreth had a few items scrawled in pen on his hand. While some might have wished it was a list of errands, it turned out to be the setlist -- a short selection taken from the band's acclaimed most recent album, 'Bitte Orca,' and pared down, with both Longstreth and lead female vocalist Amber Coffman on acoustic guitars.

Showing off the album's labyrinthine vocal melodies, Coffman and new vocalist Haley Dekle outpowered the subtle percussion of drummer Brian McComber, who played with just a single drum and a cymbal, and Nat Baldwin on upright bass.

Capping off three hours of Brooklyn music curated by the New Yorker's Kelefa Sanneh and Sasha Frere-Jones, the Dirty Projectors' selection -- "Cannibal Resource," "Temecula Sunrise," "The Bride," "Remade Horizon" and "Useful Chamber" -- didn't fail to impress, despite the notable absence of "Stillness Is The Move."

Fortunately, the experienced live performers are on the road again, playing dates across the U.S. for the next month.