Just one day after the release of his sixth studio album, Hold Time, and his appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman, M. Ward performed in Buffalo for the first time at The Tralf Music Hall. Matt Ward, the man behind the enigmatic consonant, is a singer/songwriter hailing from Portland, Oregon. Although he primarily plays guitar, Ward contributes a variety of sounds to his live show, incorporating piano and harmonica into the music produced by his four-man band.
Ward has created music with the likes of Neko Case, Conor Oberst, Nels Cline, Jim James, Jenny Lewis, and perhaps most extensively with actress and musician, Zooey Deschanel. The duo released their debut album, Volume One, in March of 2008, sculpting a saccharine sweet indie-pop sound that never gets sickening, as they lyrically temper love with loss. Their dynamic is reminiscent of Johnny Cash and June Carter, with song titles like “I Was Made For You” and, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” along with their inclusion of country music elements. As Ward shared the spotlight with Deschanel between the release of Post-War in 2006 and this month’s Hold Time, last Wednesday’s crowd might have expected a harmonious, subdued performance. I certainly heard hopeful whispers inquiring about the whereabouts of Ms. Deschanel. Certainly, no one expected him to frequently revisit earlier releases such as Transistor Radio, The Transfiguration of Vincent, and Post-War or—I sure didn’t.
Though Ward’s set began a full hour later than scheduled, he was granted immediate absolution as his band joined him midway through his first song, “Poison Cup.” In the lines before the final drum kicks, Ward promised a performance that encompasses bits and pieces of everything that he holds close to his heart and articulates his love for sharing such intimate expression. “And I hope / I hope / Hope you know what this means / I’m gonna give you everything,” he crooned, with a sort of brooding solitude, as he stood hunched over his guitar.
Beginning the night’s set with the first song on Post-War, the troubadour greeted fans with a familiar favorite, welcoming them back with a performance that reaffirmed his skill as “M. Ward.” Picking up right where he had left off in his solo career bridged the three-year gap between this album and his most recent release.
“Chinese Translation,” also a track off of Post-War, was a hit with the audience. It’s catchy rhythm and folky feel makes it stand out as one of the best on the album. Ward begins the song with “I sailed a wild, wild sea / climbed up a tall, tall mountain / I met a old, old man / beneath a weeping willow tree…” In no time, it was easy to get lost in a sort of wistful haze, even among a crowd of strangers. The sound of this number evokes sepia-toned slideshow images of father and son wasting days away in the most memorable ways. Fishing trips with the connotation of life lessons learned flashed across my mind’s eye in a silent film sort of way. The steady, snare drum rhythm and Ward’s twangy guitar playing carries the listener steadily through the song, all the way to the instrumental outro.
Ward immediately followed up with several tracks off of the new album. With piano-driven urgency, “To Save Me” serves as a catchy, energetic wakeup, capturing his audience’s attention. After taking a moment to ask how the audience was doing, over the clamor of applause, Ward professed, “Well, it’s great to be here,” before beginning his next song, “Epistomology.” Over a simple, steady drum beat, Ward questioned the origin of his romantic luck, strumming his guitar and peering out across the audience through partially closed eyes, declaring, “Finally, I found you without ever learning how to / I put the right foot in front of the left.”
Songs like, “Stars of Leo” were embellished by Ward and his keyboardist’s addition of finger-snapping and hand-clapping percussion when the beat kicked in and Ward alternated between belting out lines like, “And when I’m high above your sea of love” and a softer style of singing.
During the performance, Ward sandwiched heart-wrenching narratives and bluesy numbers between poppier songs. Straying from his set-list, he snuck “Sad, Sad Song” between two new, upbeat parts of his performance. Channeling Tom Waits and looking as stoic as ever, Ward began the song with only the accompaniment of his other guitarist. Bass and drums joined in as his quirky-looking bass player deliberately strummed along, adding to the element of surreal nostalgia, as Ward paced around the stage as though the words were spilling from his body with each repeat of the refrain.
Ward welcomed members of the Brooklyn-based six-piece, Oakley Hall, on stage with him to perform a downright brilliant cover of Daniel Johnston’s “To Go Home.” With elaborate vocal harmonies on the lines “I’ll be true to you / oh yeah you know I will.” The positive and negative space between sound and silence offered a musical richness that the original version lacks. As Ward sang with the quiet accompaniment of a single guitar, the final lines, “Lord, it’s great to be alive / takes the skin right off my hide / to think I’ll have to give it all up someday,” resonated in the silence of a quiet crowd for a brief moment before the audience broke out into applause.
A cover of Don Gibson’s “Rave On,” as made famous by Buddy Holly, was also performed, as featured on Hold Time. Utilizing the group of musicians that were gathered to perform with him, Ward made the very most his resources and his own technical talents. A total of four guitarists, six vocalists, and even a set of jingle bells collectively provided the lighthearted instrumentals to a song that Ward was able to make all his own while retaining the true framework composed by one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greats.
As part of a three-song encore, denoted on Ward’s own set-list as the beginning of the “FAKE END,” he played “Vincent O’Brien,” a song inspired by the death of one of the artist’s closest friends. Ward conveys an authenticity that conquers and quells any saturnine woe that the subject matter might produce, delivering to the audience a tune drenched in jazzy piano, entrancing guitar riffs, and powerful vocals.
It is typical of Ward to produce the atypical: music that juxtaposes emotions that aren’t usually paired together musically, but are coexistent within everyday life, laced with the nonsensicality of human emotion. This element infuses his live performance with a kind of sincerity that removes the abstraction between performance and reality.
