Nico brought his ever-expanding band of merry music-makers to DUMBO's St. Ann's Warehouse this week for Tell The Way: a collection of songs loosely centered around the theme of travel and its attendant hazards, a subject Nico knows all-too-well. (Travel was also the subject of Diacritical Marks, premiered by the Chiara Quartet last month at the Ecstatic Music Festival.)
On the surface, the evening resembled his American Songbook show at Lincoln Center two seasons ago, with Nico behind the piano and a rotating cast of characters supported by go-to comtemporary band ACME. But, this venture was amplified by the presence of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus: a Grammy-winning, 50-strong choir of teens who've performed with everyone from the NY Philharmonic to Grizzly Bear. Most impressively, they sang all 11 songs on the program from memory.
Among the guest artists was Nico's old friend and co-conspirator Sam Amidon, who sounded like a latter-day Ralph Stanley with his shape note phrasing and muddy diction. The National's Bryce Dessner joined on electric guitar for several songs, including his own Tour Eiffel. And, it was literally impossible to take your eyes off of the flamboyant London-based Bengali singer/sitarist/DJ Bishi, who wore sang, played and danced her way through several electronically-enhanced numbers. Throughout, Nico contributed his ususal manic stage banter, eliciting frequent – if occasionally unintentional – laughter from the large audience.
More pics on Flickr.