Bird Watching
Davis on the music beat, unbeatable. Here's a quick background, to set the scene: On the Parisian Website La Blogothèque, photographer and filmmaker Vincent Moon regularly contributes a video feature called Les concerts à emporter ("The Take-Away Shows") in which he films emerging bands in distinctive locations around France, performing songs in one continuous take.
Andrew Bird has definitely got the best foie gras on Montmartre. Vincent Moon's video of Bird pondering around the 18th arrondissement is equal parts impromptu concert en plein air and study in public reactions to impromtu concerts. By the end of "Spare-Ohs," Bird is looking out over the hill onto the rest of the city below and Moon swirls the camera around to catch a 360 of the gathered crowd. And of course you're like, Whoa where did they come from? Because Moon's technique is carefully calculated to seem simultaneously in your living room and on a crowded street. Because if crowded streets were really like videos of a whistling fiddler and the children of Hamelin, then the world would be a better place. Extra points for the little spiritual-tinged song Bird picks on his fiddle and sings during the credits.
[via La Blogotheque]
