Bon Iver in the morning, Bon Iver in the Evening...

"Oh my god," said the girl on the blanket next to me. "Oh my god," she said, with her black cowboy hat on tight almost over her eyes, a beer held in one hand daintily like a wine glass, her slight southern accent blazing with excitement. She wasn't entirely there, that was for sure. There was something a lot heavier inside her than alcohol and i can't say I care to know what it was. All I knew that she'd uncovered some epiphany and was about to share it with the world.
"oh my god," she said, and she went wide-eyed.
"That was the best dor-i-to I ever had."

You have to be mighty out-of-it if you're 2 hours away from seeing Bon Iver in a cemetery at 6 am and all your excitement is pouring out of you into a chip. But I can relate to one thing with that kinda-probably coked out Texan woman; I found joy in unexpected places. I sat at some guy named Fairbanks grave and listened to a friend talk about his history with girls and parties and life. I occasionally stuck in a neurotic aside about my lack of life experience, but those comments were uneeded, because this guy was a great story teller. I'd take them back and just leave the story if I could.
There was also a pretty sick security guard, and a guy with free donuts at the end, and a man in a snuggie who wouldn't stop dancing. All in all, it was a good group of wackjobs, myself included.

I figured that I would be coming to this concert ready to hear my album played back to me on a live stage, which at the time made me spazz (pretty badly) with excitement. I was prepared to recognize every stylistic touch, the way I had with Phoenix and with Wolf Parade and with all the concerts I had had previous to this one. But anyways that didn't happen. Bon Iver opened the show with "Lump Sum" and it exploded from the speakers with more livelihood than I would have ever expected with electric guitars, rhythm and lead, a base that was set so high the air shook, and two drum sets. Every simple song was fleshed out, every melody amplified. Creature Fear especially impressed me, the way the sudden chorus shift sounds live is unbelievable.

I could be wrong, but the track list went SOMETHING like this:
1) Lump Sum
2) Creature Fear
3)Teams (improv)
4) Blood Bank
5)Flume
6)Babys
7)Skinny Love
8)??? (megafaun song)
9)For Emma
10)Re:Stacks
11) The Wolves

I loved Justin's comments throughout the show. He was humble and funny, but mostly he was just weird. He played the first two songs before he ever spoke to us, but when he finally did the whole serious atmosphere just dropped away.
"Thank you guys so much for being here. Like....whoa." Everyone laughed a little and Justin took a swig of something before shaking his head and heading back to the microphone.
"I think this is the weirdest thing any of us here have ever done."
Justin Vernon was an odd speaker, but he was just what I expected; A little strange and a lot of amazing.
The songs live were better than every recording I'd ever heard of them. It's not often these days that I come across musicians who have the charisma or the talent to make their songs wok on stage but Bon Iver pulled it off with little effort. I enjoyed every second of this concert, and it wasn't just the music I heard; it was the sound of two years of obsession solidifying.

So some people have their doritos and others have their music. But in the end we all find a reason to feel full.