Andrew Bird: Fever Year

Chronological isn't always logical so it turns out. 

Here is a post from something I have been doing today, in New York. 

This evening I went (alone) to watch a film titled 'Andrew Bird: Fever Year' as part of the 2011 New York Film Festival. For those not as musically inclined as others, Andrew Bird is a musician who's relentless touring and recording schedule over the last decade has left him with a huge following across the globe but very little success in the form of 'hits' and record sales (not necessarily a bad thing).

The film is a music documentary cum live concert film combined together in a very natural way, with neither side really dominating over the other. It documents Andrew at the tail end of 2009 where he played 165 shows throughout the year and the resulting effect it has had on his health; the film is aptly titled 'Fever Year' as it's mentioned many times throughout it's rare that Andrew doesn't have a temperature of below 102, but yet he continues unabashed and very enjoyably to perform every night. 

The film was fantastic, made even more so by a Q&A with the director (Xan Aranda) who's thoughts really helped complete the circle and made me appreciate the film so much more. There was a very clear collaboration between subject and director, they both knew each other as friends and as creatives. It was great to see the film as both of them had wanted, instead of watching an exotic and talented animal in an glass case being poked and filmed by it's master who didn't know it's name or understand what it did. 

I am not a writer, I tried to write a few paragraphs about the film and found I just wrote the same thing over and over again. I know what I feel about it and that's fine by me. I feel very lucky to have seen it as it's only going to be screened in film festivals and not made into a dvd or distributed widely. To quote Xan..

"He (Andrew) doesn't write anything down so why would he make a DVD?"

Below are some of the concert posters showcased within the film as Andrew likes to collaborate with creatives rather a lot as the top picture is testament too. Anything like that is great to see but especially for me as a designer it was just fantastic, a few of them below. I've gone on too long, it's 2AM and I'm tired.

 

So little information about this film to be found online. For anyone who's interest has been stirred you can try the link below...

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/andrew-bird-fever-year