She & Him - Debut Review

Zooey D stole some hipster hearts last night; mine included. Not exactly the most unbiased way to start a review, but what are you going to do. Half the appeal of the newly formed She & Him lies in the celebrity of one Zooey Dechanel (it doesn’t hurt that she has paired up with the incomparable M. Ward). They recently put together a pretty quality LP entitled Volume I. Overall, I give this an 8.5/10. I’ll be honest, that’s more so than most reviewers, but I’m a sucker for risk takers. I like the Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse’s (pre cracked-out), and now the She & Him’s who are willing to mix up convention. But, this isn’t an album review so much as a concert review.

I’m telling you the show was pretty decent, besides the short run time of less than 1 hour. Zooey had lost her voice, so refrained from talking between songs. But, surprisingly, it didn’t affect her singing all that much… she trudged on with the occasional cracked note and sang her signature Folk-Americana-Country-Jazz-Indie sound; surprisingly representative of the album. M. Ward takes a back seat to this collaboration, but nevertheless provides amazingly smoky, soulful background that enhances the overall sound She & him is going for.

The hyped ‘Why Don’t You Let Me Stay Here” lived up, as Zooey rocked out on Keyboard, and her voice rang true to the sentiment of the song. “Change is Hard” slowed the crowd down to just the right pace. A great interlude and a solid way to showcase the voices of Zooey and M. By far the most crowd enjoyable tune of the evening was the finale of “Sweet Darling” – a late 60’s throwback with the backbone to get a crowd moving and wishing for more.

I’ll say the best part of the night was seeing Zooey’s youthful enthusiasm for being on stage. When M. Ward would be rockin a solo, she was wide eyed, grin from ear to ear, looking at the crowd with the admiration we were equally returning. I say it was great as it’s refreshing to see artists who don’t expect admiration, don’t expect praise. They preform their craft and create music for themselves that we, the crowd, loves. There’s something to say about musical inhibitions when its clearly overshadowed by raw talent.

If you aren’t fortunate enough to live in NYC, LA, or San Fran, you may be out of luck to catch them. They chose to debut their songs on a whopping 3 city, 4 date tour. I think their expectations under estimated the true impact of their music.

I highly recommend checking them out… it will mix up the typical indie tunes with some solid country throwbacks. If you get the chance to see them live, hit it up. Ifor no other reason than the beautiful Zooey Dechanel.