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Concert review: Chris Thile takes new road with Punch Brothers

Rob Thomas  —  9/05/2008 7:10 am

Chris Thile doesn't break through musical boundaries so much as he gently dismantles them and packs them away. His previous band, the trio Nickel Creek, proved that a bluegrass trio could have mainstream pop success and make the genre's traditions feel fresh and contemporary.

Nickel Creek is on an "extended hiatus" (the trio played a glorious farewell show at Overture Hall last October), and Thile seems to be indulging a little musical wanderlust. He has a new album with bassist Edgar Meyer coming out later this month and is on tour as part of a new band, the five-piece Punch Brothers, which played at the Barrymore Theatre on Thursday night.

The Punch Brothers are, if anything, an even more ambitious venture than Nickel Creek. While Thile's sweet vocals and energetic mandolin playing remain a cornerstone of the band's sound, some of the music incorporates a classical structure; woven through the show was a 40-minute, four-movement piece Thile created about his divorce called "The Blind Leading the Blind." Not exactly "The Smoothie Song."

If that sounds too academic, rest assured that most Nickel Creek fans would have loved it, and each movement received an unusually long round of applause from the Barrymore audience. Mixing vocals with instrumental passages, the movements occasionally burst into bluegrass sections before drifting off into more dissonant passages, making for an invigorating night of music. It was at times challenging music, not self-consciously "difficult," and full of moments of pure pleasure.

The four players with Thile, on banjo, guitar, bass and violin, huddled in a semi-circle around two microphones, exchanging knowing glances as they passed a melody back and forth for improvised playing, then slipped into a tight, cohesive unit for the piece's more meticulously arranged sections. All five were amazing players, with banjo player Noam Pikelny (formerly of jam-grass band Leftover Salmon) and violinist Gabe Witcher making the biggest impression.

Other highlights included the rollicking traditional sound of "Watch 'at Breakdown," which was paired with the more wistful acoustic tune "It'll Happen." Thile's voice is good but not great, and he has a tendency on the more traditional bluegrass songs to lapse into a goofy falsetto rather than really trying to sell the tune. But he puts the right note of emotion into unabashedly personal songs like "It'll Happen."

The show ended with a very different pair of cover tunes. The White Stripes' lurching "Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground" got transformed into a hell-bent-for-leather bluegrass reel that would have made the Del McCoury Band proud. Then the Punch Brothers did a straightforward and gorgeous version of Wilco's "Poor Places" to end the night.

The Punch Brothers have a way to go before they can match Nickel Creek in one respect -- their onstage banter isn't quite as hilarious. Pikelny did get off a good line, noting that Thile is "the Punch Brother with the most executive experience," a reference to the speechifying on television that the crowd was more than happy to be skipping. With the Punch Brothers, Thile seems to have retained the core of his Nickel Creek appeal while taking it down some interesting avenues -- and that is change we can believe in.

Rob Thomas  —  9/05/2008 7:10 am