The Long Stringed Instrument and the Gargantuan Vision
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Poi Dog Pondering’s stand at the Vic this weekend is an impressive display of leader Frank Orrall’s talents as both a commercial draw–all three nights and 4,000 tickets are sold out–and an impresario. “When we were with CBS,” he says, referring to the band’s three albums on the label, “I wanted to do stuff like this, but they always put us on the road as a rock band. These shows are my opportunity to say, ‘Oh yeah, I can do it.’” Accordingly, fans are going to get their money’s worth: the lineup includes the new Poi Dog, now up to ten members; an additional brace of backup singers; a string quartet; a harpist; the House-o-Matic dance corps; and several other singers and musicians, from Abra Moore, who sang on the band’s first album, to Ellen Fullman, who plays something she calls the “Long Stringed Instrument,” which features dozens of pianolike strings stretched across a 100-foot frame. (The Vic version will be a somewhat attenuated 60-foot-plus model set against the stage’s back wall.) The band will be playing two sets, both in front of projections of film loops by old Austin collaborator Luke Savisky. The sound will be mixed on an enormous 56-channel board brought in just for the occasion. “This is the way I always envisioned Poi Dog,” says Orrall.
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