Laura Veirs and Karl Blau have known each other for 25 years. Veirs is a falsetto-tinged wisp of a singer songwriter who sports her gray hair with the pride of the Pacific Northwestern local she is. Last week at Ballard's Tractor Tavern, catching the blue stage lights, the remnant glow from the Tavern's bar, and the silent and somewhat-awed attention of the mostly middle aged, bald, bearded, glass-faced crowd, Veirs recounted meeting Blau at a record store on Vashon Island. As we did with many of her stories, the crowd nodded in recognition. Vashon isn’t far from here.
If Veirs is a knit sweater, Blau is a cedar strip canoe. His rugged frame was hidden mostly by an amber shirt tucked into khakis; his red pepper man bun and beard tinged with a rural utility lacking in similarly-styled men scattered through the crowd.
Veirs and Blau have been playing together off and on since that fateful record store run in, and it showed in their performance. After all, Tractor Tavern billed the concert as, "An evening with Laura Veirs and Karl Blau." Their ease on stage and with each other, their storytelling and their candor were all part of the draw. The comedy of it–intentional or not–was part of what made the night unique, one half of their "twoer," as Blau dubbed it (the other show was, unsurprisingly, in Portland).
And that comedy consisted mostly of Veirs and Blau forgetting things, and not caring a lick about it.
Recounting a misadventure on tour in Rome, neither Veirs nor Blau could remember if they had been looking for the Parthenon or the Pantheon. This mis-rememory was fitting at least, as the story was actually about them forgetting which historic structure they were looking for, and getting lost in Rome as locals pointed Veirs and Blau in the general direction of Greece.
Veirs attempted to plug a live album she’s releasing in April. She wasn't sure of the date.
One song began with a beautifully repeated series of acoustic guitar chords. Repetition seems to be a hallmark of Veirs's music, her hooks and lyrics enveloping you by their third or fourth time around. But this intro was especially long and uniquely redundant, until Veirs, still playing her instrument, murmured, laughingly, "This song has an opening line and I'm not sure what it is." A fan, distracted from her melodic head bobbing, shouted it out. Veirs promised her merch after the show.
Playing another tune, "Pink Light," on request from an audience eager to show off their favorite deep cut, Veirs asked Blau if he remembered the chords.
"Uhhhhh," he stammered as she launched into the song. They made it through an especially off kilter first verse before Veirs just told Blau, "We're in B, Karl."
"Does anyone know where my dog is?" she asked the crowd an hour into the show. He had been with her on stage.
One song, "Shadow," was inspired by a tune Karl had written.
"What was it called, Karl?"
"I honestly can't remember."
These were musicians enjoying the calm of their friendship and the adoration of their icon status, however hyperlocal. The slight imperfections of their plucking, of Blau's attempts to match Veirs's pitch, and of course of their memory made the music all the warmer, all the more real.
And despite the jokes, the interruptions to remember chords, and the gloriously distracting painting of a black stallion above the bar, there were still moments when the music took us and enveloped us, when the visible spaces in the front of the room blurred as they floated along to the caresses of the sound. It's a sensation normally inspired only by the anthemic crescendos or the overpowering volume of a full band or massive speaker array.
But this was different.
It was the oh-so subtle crackles in Veir's falsetto, the admiring and total attention of the mostly seated crowd, the unplayed note at the end of each song like an empty echo. It was the silences that held us.
And that, I at least won't forget.