Ariel Pink @ Hailey's Sat. Night

Seeing Ariel Pink at SXSW last year was a less than thrilling experience. He played with a band that he obviously hadn't been playing with for long (or maybe just met that day), most of the set was improvised, and the performance was sloppy to say the least. It was mainly disappointing because I was expecting a lot, even if the humor of seeing him be extremely difficult at an industry showcase wasn't lost on me or most of the audience.

So it was with some apprehension that I trucked on up to Denton (again) on Saturday to see him (again). Saying I made the right choice is probably something of an understatement, because I can't imagine that there has been a more unique concert experience in DFWd in the past couple of months... at least. Despite some sound problems (I know, I'm starting to sound like a broken record around here), the show was captivating from the start. Pink was alone on stage throughout most of the set, and was accompanied by some homemade videos that were very well done in that K Records DIY kind of way, complete with sock puppets and camcorder footage of trees, etc. Pink stuck to his previously recorded material, and it was pleasantly surprising to hear how well he performed it live. Most of the time when someone says, " this sounds just like the record," at a concert, it doesn't really mean a whole lot. But the fact that Ariel Pink can replicate the feel, not to mention the structure and sound of his recordings is quite an achievement considering how random much of his stuff is. And although his songs all have a meditative, trance inducing quality to them, the underlying pop structure of his music was clearly discernible throughout the set, making it that much easier to loose yourself in the hazy loneliness of his music. There is a certain sadness that pervades in his songs, and that aspect of his work was communicated just as effectively as the goofiness that makes Ariel Pink a pleasant listen.

The show sort of took a turn for the worst when he started to improvise with a local band that he had hooked up with earlier in the day, but his humorous free form lyrics made even that part tolerable, although I could have done without it. Ariel Pink is an epic and talented songwriter that uses his music to not only convey ideas that seem to exist only on a subconscious level, but also to make it a little more difficult for the audience to comprehend just what those ideas are. And trying to figure it all out is part of his appeal.