By Jamie Frey

The victory lap reunion in indie rock is a weird phenomenon, especially when you arrive at a concert and walk the circumference of a whole city block to get on line to see an act that never sold any records in its original run. It started when I was 19, when I watched my favorite obscure (for the time period) band the Pixies sell out 9 consecutive shows and make my wildest dreams come true, returning to an audience many times the size of their original run. I’ve seen them six times since then. Pavement did the same thing and I went four times. I saw Mission Of Burma play in 2002 and I probably have seen them 8 times since; that was twelve years ago and the original band was together for about three years. Same with the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup, I can’t even count the times I’ve seen ‘em play, and they have had a whole new career.

The indie rock reunion was taboo once, but even the king of austerity, Greg Ginn, has taken the Black Flag mantle off his shelf, regardless of how it came off (which is highly debatable). To me, I have nothing bad to say about any of this really, because all these people I’ve mentioned deserve the money. They all chose to make the music that they wanted, while other people made bank with radio singles and huge tours. The hard road deserves a payoff, especially when your records have touched so many people. I can’t think of a more extreme example than Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel, who, during their original run, didn’t really have much of a life other than being a favorite of the most extreme record nerds.

Basically what I’m getting at is that sometimes you go see a gig, big or small, and some shows are like a dream. I never thought I’d see the Pixies or the Replacements and I certainly never thought I’d see Jeff Mangum , who went from total Unabomber-style recluse to hanging out at NYC shows and Occupy Wall Street. I remember being totally shocked finding him having a beer at an Apples In Stereo show at Irving Plaza, and perplexed to find him having a cappuccino a few feet from me at Cafe Reggio. I was shocked to arrive at the Loew’s Theatre (despite the corporate name, a beautiful old theatre in Jersey City, like a modest Carnegie Hall) and see a line of hundreds of folks waiting to get in.

I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised, especially since NMH produced one of the shining achievements of the Nineties. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is truly the Pet Sounds of the modern rock era (or at least its Third Sister/Lovers,) a transformative, otherworldly, deeply personal record that tells the epic tale of a very brilliant mind falling apart. The other concertgoers and I sat in this old-fashioned, seated venue, and the lights went down and the bearded mountain man, Jeff Mangum, flanked by his bandmates, arrived at the side of stage wielding an acoustic guitar. He started off “The King Of Carrot Flowers, Part 1,” the journey began, and we all started singing along.

Mangum with his wild strum was augmented greatly by six other extremely deft multi-instrumentalists, including his cohorts from the Aeroplane era: Julian Koster, for example, played the singing saw, banjo, synth, accordion and that fuzzed out bass that gives “Holland, 1945” that weird, punky mojo. Even the amazing drummer Jeremy Barnes (who’s jazzy snare rolls and push and pull lock in with Mangum’s shaky rhythm to create a chaotic stomp) doubles on keyboard and accordion. There was another female band member who played accordion; in fact, three band members out of seven could play accordion, which is hard as fuck. They were able to have up to three versatile horn players, making the tunes soar back in time to some imaginary baroque castle where many tales of incest occurred and maybe Anne Frank is still hiding from the Nazis.

When the band splayed its full wing-span, I was glad we were in this nice seated venue with great acoustics and not your usual rock club hole; it made the experience more magical. I was even happier when Jeff Mangum graciously invited the whole room to stand, and as soon as the next song started, I was hopping into my friend as if we were at our usual punk dives. The set kind of went like, a few tracks from Aeroplane, mostly in order, and then a break to get to their more down to earth, Sub Pop-esque tracks from the underrated On Avery Island, and their EPs. When they broke into “Song Against Sex,” I realized it is an absolute classic track that is basically some blown out punk rock.

The most transcendent moment came when Jeff came to the stage alone to play “Oh Comely” and the crowd went strikingly silent. Many of the crowd may have taken LSD or some other mood enhancer (a man hit the floor waiting outside the venue and was taken away in a stretcher.) I just ate some weed butter and pounded two beers, but I can safely say that particular song took us on a trip and continued into “goldaliiiiiiiiine my deaaaaaaaar” and then the horn driven instrumental “The Fool” too over. When that section was over, it was one of those moments where the audience has just been rendered completely dumbstruck. When the band went into the wacky organ-driven “Untitled” instrumental, I remember my mind fizzing over during many mushroom trips some years ago; this album always reminds me of them. It was the soundtrack to my adolescence.

Playing almost the whole Aeroplane and some great early material, the band brought it in with “Anchor,” a self described “lullaby.” I left the show feeling blown away by what I had just seen and a real positivity; it really was something to see Jeff performing his accomplished material happily to an enthralled audience. It was moving, especially since this was a guy who you couldn’t find for many years. In the early 2000’s, during the indie rock baby boom, NMH were boosted into super-relevance (much as the Velvets and Stooges were during the punk era.) Bands like Modest Mouse, The Arcade Fire, Rilo Kiley and Bright Eyes were making it really big, and all those acts, among many others, found inspiration in this source material. It justified whatever pain it took Mangum to create and release these song. It was like seeing Brian Wilson during his brief reunion with his cousin and old friends in the Beach Boys, a survivor who’s been to the dark side and back, making peace with his complicated past. NMH really are the soundtrack to our lives and seeing them live made me remember how strange it is to be anything at aaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll… (Cue the horns.)

*Special thanks to Jim Appio for the last-minute tickets. Check out his blog, Cool Dad Music.