I was really looking forward to this,it was a sold out show and I had bought the tickets the second I could.He started with Creature Fear and couple other songs-even offered two new songs "Babies" and one he didn't give the title to,but was about "being alone in the snow in Wisconsin where we come from".The first had a long,continuous piano the entire way with a finale where guitars et. al pump the noise for a dramatic,loud finish-traces of Chris Martin,complete rubbish.And the second untitled one sounded like a generic Snow Patrol tune,Justin (lead for Bon Iver) said the songs will be on an upcoming EP which I don't think I'll be rushing to the store to buy.Twice he went acoustic,for their most well-known songs Stacks and Skinny Love.Those were good,got chills and only few other times in the night did their live music reflect the brilliance of their album,Forever Emma Forever Ago.Other times,it was just not what I expected.On most songs,they ended with a noisy rocky mix with the guitars especially boisterous.I mean,I really enjoyed the drums (at times there were two sets played,then Mike the obviously underage beer-drinking guitarist joined with a third on occasion) and the guitars were deeply affecting at times,but there was so much button-pushing and weird gadget-using that really contradicts the album's natural,slow ways.It was like I was watching a different band,like going to a Rihanna concert totally expecting her typical S&M freakiness and skimpy dancers going ballistic,but then seeing her emerge in a t-shirt and singing Mariah Carey covers.And the next part is going to sound painfully pretentious,but I must say it.I HATE the way he plays The Wolves (an EXCELLENT song from the album) on stage-he gets the audience to participate singing the last part of the song (a line that goes "What might've been lost") and the whole venue gets warped into singing this one line a million times as the music goes crescendo and its just so fucking cheesy everytime I see it,and putting so much emphasis on this minor part of the whole song to me eludes the the true beauty of it and is obviously a gimmick to satisfy gig-attendees who expect that sort of cheesiness and know close to nothing about the band.No doubt almost everyone was walking out cheery and still clapping but what I saw was definitely not Bon Iver,it was an effective crowd-pleasing chameleon who I might've enjoyed more if I hadn't loved the album so much.
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