Big Thief Steals Hearts at the Wilbur

After years of non-stop touring and two album releases in 2019 alone, Big Thief’s sold-out show at The Wilbur was only one small glimpse of the momentum the folk-rock band has amassed since its formation in 2015. Still, the members of Big Thief took the stage with a sense of humility, intimacy, and newfound wonder that resonates throughout their music.

Frontwoman Adrianne Lenker thanked the audience for coming with the demeanor of someone who has not yet grown accustomed to regularly selling out 1,000+ person venues. “And then there’s people upstairs,” she observed, squinting into the mezzanine with an expression of gratitude and awe. “Oh yeah. Thank you. Wow.”

Big Thief opened their set with a series of songs off their album “Two Hands,” released two days prior. Many of the songs featured intricate instrumentals utilizing feedback and fuzz effects to create a chaotic stream of noise that felt more intense live than in the band’s recordings. During the long instrumental at the end of “Not,” Lenker crouched to the floor, bent over her electric guitar with her back to the audience, the noise building and building as her hand flew across the fretboard.

After “Shoulders,” the last song in the opening series of songs off the newest album, the band gathered at the middle of the stage to consult each other then returned to their spots, smiling, and launched into “Cattails,” a bouncy folk tune off “U.F.O.F.,” released this spring. In this and in every other move they made, Big Thief’s members worked seamlessly as a team. Between songs, Lenker and Buck Meek, guitarist and backup vocalist, occasionally bantered back and forth with a contagious energy. The crowd joined in, shouting between songs, “I love you guys” and “You rock, Adrianne,” and Lenker would respond with kind words and a soft laugh.

While the band led with their more recent music, they still took time to play some of their old hits. When the first notes of “Paul” sounded, there was an excited intake of breath from the crowd. Likewise, the solid, familiar vocals of “Masterpiece” complemented the band’s newer, fuzzier, and more ethereal songs nicely. During the 2017 single “Mythological Beauty,” one audience member began visibly sobbing.

Near the end of the set, the band played “from” off Lenker’s 2018 solo release, “abysskiss,” as well as a new, unreleased, untitled song. Midway through the new song, Lenker paused on a lyric, stumped. “The snow rose to my ear / and to your neck,” she tried, then stopped playing and moved her hand to mimic the level of the snow, confused. “If I’m here and they’re here and the snow is here to your ear, how does this work?” she asked the audience, and the audience shouted back a cacophony of answers. Eventually, having settled on “The snow rose to my ear / and to your shoulder,” Lenker continued the song to a round of cheers.

“This room just really makes me feel like a half circle,” Lenker commented at one point, gazing out into the crowd in a way that felt simultaneously intimate and distant, like she was trying to offer the audience a window into some distant plane of thought. “But surely there’s a full circle. I just keep thinking and feeling this shape.”

“Together we’re a full circle,” Meek answered, and the crowd laughed.

As with every other indie concert in 2019, Big Thief’s “closing song” was merely a formality. Next came the typical the half-hearted exit, the brief chants of “encore,” and the expected re-emergence of the band members. However, rather than play one of their biggest hits for the encore, the band chose to play another new, unreleased song. With many other bands, this would be surprising: the choice to end with something unfamiliar — a song to which people can only attentively listen — rather than the safe bet of a popular crowd-pleaser. With Big Thief, in all their restless wonder, it made perfect sense.

— Staff Writer Marie A. Ungar can be reached at marie.ungar@thecrimson.com.