Michaela Stock

The sallow glow of yellow street lamps striped Adrianne Lenker’s defined cheekbones as we talked after her show in Holland, Michigan’s Park Theatre. Adrianne’s band, Big Thief, had just finished their headlining set and were zipping around the venue’s back lot on skateboards. I watched the rubber wheels steam off of the ninety-degree asphalt. Adrianne’s eyes had an observant ambiance about them as if the transience of life on the road kept her mind rolling along with the van she traveled in.

Based in Brooklyn, New York, Big Thief is a dynamic indie rock band that consists of guitarist and vocalist Adrianne Lenker, bassist Max Oleartchik, and James Krivchenia. Their fourth member, Buck Meek, was not present for their Park Theatre show. The band was strangely plotted on stage, as Adrianne led on stage left, Max on bass took center, and James drummed on stage right. It contradicted the typical drums-in-the-back and lead-in-the-front stage mix, adding instant intrigue and uniqueness to their set.

Big Thief played a gut-wrenching set that sank deep into intelligence and emotion. Adrianne’s massive strums upon her f-holed electric, tasteful screams of angst, and the band’s cohesive, tight playing made the experience near spiritual. Big Thief was musically complex yet conceptual. It is no doubt that Lenker has a way with words.

Soft-spoken and a seeker of silence, Adrianne welcomed the spaces within conversation and shows. She did not work to fill the quiet gaps of time while on stage. When she tuned her electric, she noted her love of silence between her and the audience. “Somehow, we’ve gotten really quick at tuning,” Adrianne said. She then remarked something along the lines of, “I’ve missed these long pauses on stage with you.” Even in her and my conversations before and after the show, she did not work to fill any silence that occurred between us. Adrianne carried herself in a way that was centered, within herself and within the quiet. She was immaculately present in every moment.

Adrianne’s ability to appreciate the present permeated through her live show beyond tuning her guitar. She was deeply in touch with how she was feeling during her set and was not afraid to share it the crowd. When the crowd clapped for an encore, Adrianne returned to the stage, took the microphone without her guitar, and said that playing an extra song did not feel right to her at that time. Her approach to declining the encore was not out of distain or snobbery but out of pure, present emotion. I can speak for myself and others by saying that we all left the show with a deeper respect for Big Thief and Adrianne’s artistic genuineness.