People use a variety of things to combat the grumpies. Booze, bad television, shopping excessively, and arguing with strangers is just a short list of things that can be brought into play to chase the blues away. But nothing quite does the trick like conjuring up an image of Zooey Deschanel in a sun dress, jumping up and down while banging on a tambourine – which is exactly what she did for about an hour and a half at the sold out She & Him show at Terminal 5 in Manhattan a few nights ago. Matt Ward and Deschanel, the duo who make up She & Him, are touring to promote their new CD, Volume Two, and are as pleasing to the eyes and ears as just about anything you can imagine. The crowd was a mixed bag of dudes and their girlfriends, and moist-eyed 20-something ladies, so basically anything could have happened – but once She & Him got on stage, it was as though the vents opened up and a heavy fog of “polite and dreamy” gas lowered the blood pressure and raised the mouth corners of the entire audience. The band opened up with “Change is Hard” from their first album, Volume One, and ended the night with a three song encore consisting of M. Ward’s “Magic Trick,” a cover of Ricky Nelson’s “Fools Rush In,” and a jaw dropping rendition of Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You,” during which Deschanel held a note for about 89 minutes.
The highlight of the evening, aside from Deschanel giving the audience a tutorial on how to turn the flashes off on their cameras because they were ruining the mood, was the singer’s take on Joni Mitchell’s “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio,” which you can watch right here.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1tvUSb0xjs 425×344][Photo credit = Tracy Allison]
