Photo credit: Daniel Ojeda/PTG Live Events
Over the past 10 years, Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon has embodied the improbable underdog for the entire state of Wisconsin. Back in 2008, it seemed impossible that a musician could capture an indie-rock audience outside the big hubs of Los Angeles or Brooklyn, N.Y. It was in January of that year that he played Mad Planet to about 100 people with some Milwaukee buddies. But Vernon eventually proved that it didn’t matter where you were located as long as the material had merit.
For Emma, Forever Ago, Bon Iver’s 2008 landmark debut, seeped with pain and loss behind Vernon’s soon-to-be trademark falsetto. It was an album that felt magnanimous but at the same time stark and intimate. The rural mystique surrounding the writing—that Vernon holed up in a Wisconsin hunting cabin during a winter to record the album—added an insatiable hook to the Bon Iver narrative.
As the story goes, Vernon would go on to collaborate with Kanye West and win a Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Despite all the national attention, he embraced his Wisconsin roots, building a record studio, April Base, and starting a music festival in his hometown of Eau Claire.
That’s why it’s fitting that Vernon chose a Wisconsin locale, the BMO Harris Bradley Center, to hold a special 10-year anniversary of For Emma, Forever Ago on Saturday night. And he asked those same Milwaukee buddies from that Mad Planet show, Collections of Colonies of Bees and Field Report (then known as Conrad Plymouth) to open the night.
“I don’t want to make too big a deal of the evening, but it does feel like our birthday party,” Vernon said, as he stood in what resembled a frozen ice cavern that was illuminated by candles. For the beginning of the night, Vernon acted stoic and reserved, perhaps taking in the enormity of the evening. The audience echoed that temperament—somehow, someway, a sold-out arena showed reverence and grace as Vernon strummed through For Emma’s most poignant and heartbreaking moments.
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But that disposition started to change after a few songs. The band barreled through the conclusion, “Creature Fear,” which built into a thundering arena-rock crescendo, buoyed by the two drummers pounding on their sets. The band came alive and displayed the sonic dynamism that would carry the show. The audience went along for the ride.
This one-off performance not only looked back at the album, but its greatest flashes were when Bon Iver paid tribute to the songs that were written around the same time. Vernon stood alone on stage, looping vocals to the ethereal Blood Bank song “Woods” as just his voice bounced around the arena’s vast expanse. He also shared an unreleased track, “Hayward, WI.” “Play some songs you know how to play; then play the one you don’t know about,” he admitted, before diving into the somber folk tune.
The performance was also highlighted by covers that the band played on its first tour, including Graham Nash’s “Simple Man” sung by bandmate Mike Noyce and “Loving’s for Fools,” a cover of Sarah Siskind, who joined him onstage to sing along. In the end, Bon Iver playing the Bradley Center was just a concert, but it couldn’t help but feel so much bigger than that. It felt like a big hug to the state of Wisconsin—and a proclamation that you, too, can make an imprint on the world from here.
