Pitchfork

Danish dreamweavers Mew left cloud cuckoo land for moment to play a gig in Chicago last night, bringing along a massive projected backdrop that spilled fantastical, eerie, and often unsettling imagery over the entire back wall of the Metro. It proved a perfect complement to the painfully un-hip (in a good way) aesthetic of Mew, here a five-piece comprised of two guitars, bass, drums, and keyboard, and all bad haircuts, un-ironic mustaches, and corny lyrics about giraffes and rockets. Fairytale stuff.

Yet somehow, like Peter Pan or The Little Prince, these were fairytales with considerable emotional heft, for kids and adults alike. Mew weren't afraid to punch up the drama with soaring harmonic choruses that wound up being bridges to even higher-altitude choruses. The set included a number of tunes from this year's Pitchfork Recommended And the Glass Handed Kites, as well as older favorites, including a scintillating rendition of "Am I Wry? No".

Singer Jonas Bjerre was the focal point, a starry-eyed man-child with considerable range (most of it in the upper registers), a street urchin trying to sing his way into our hearts and our homes. Turns out he creates the video projections too, the most oddly memorable of which featured an interminably hovering fleet of dolls and stuffed animals playing violins. Elegiac and wondrous in equal measure, it more or less encapsulated the unique appeal of a band bored or just plain oblivious to de rigeur cynicism and intent on conjuring its own fascinating, sonorous universe.

Mew continue weaving across the country with Kasabian, then play a string of headline shows. Dates and more photos ahead.

Mew on tour:

10-03 Lawrence, KS - The Bottleneck *
10-05 Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line Music Café *
10-07 Denver, CO - Gothic Theatre *
10-10 San Diego, CA - House of Blues
10-11 Los Angeles, CA - The Fonda *
10-13 San Francisco, CA - The Independent *
10-15 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom *
10-16 Seattle, WA - Neumos *
10-17 Portland, OR - Berabati's Pan
10-19 San Francisco, CA - 330 Ritch (Popscene)
10-21 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey
10-23 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theatre
10-25 Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line
10-26 Chicago, IL - Double Door
10-28 Mexico City, Mexico - TBA
10-30 Atlanta, GA - The Variety Playhouse
11-01 Baltimore, MD - Fletcher's
11-03 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
11-10 Moscow, Russia - 35mm Concert Hall

* with Kasabian