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CHICAGO — Colin Meloy appeared on stage an hour early during a recent Decemberists show to illuminate the crowd on how the power shifted from the Swedish Empire to the Tsardom of Russia in terms of controlling Baltic maritime trade routes following the Great Nordic War, enraptured sources confirmed.

“The folks here seemed like they were very well seasoned in rock and roll shows. I could tell they’ve done this and been here before. I elected to not bore them with some anecdote of the great Chicago fire, or ramble on about how what is referred to as the first Chicago school mixed European modernism and neo-classical architecture to create the commercial style in early skyscrapers,” Meloy explained. “The Chicago crowd is so well versed in letting loose that I felt I needed to abandon local lore and throw something like the Treaty of Nystad at them to get the energy up for a performance.”

A fan was spotted near the stage wearing a Decemberists shirt and holding a tape recorder the entirety of Meloy’s opening crowd work.

“Oh I can’t really speak too profoundly on their music. I basically record Colin at shows, transcribe the recording and turn it in as a paper, this thing is worth 33% of my grade and I think this is worthy of at least a B+,” admitted Jenny Blank, an online graduate student studying history. “Few weeks ago they played a show in Cleveland and Colin went fully in on Warren G. Harding and the Teapot Dome scandal and how it is a high water mark in presidential cabinet corruption. I dumbed down some of the language to make it seem like something I wrote and my professor referred to it as ‘a revelation,’ which I found out is really good!”

A member of one of the opening acts was seen pounding Malort shots at the bar.

“We have been touring for only like four weeks and he has written a children’s book and created an expansion deck for the card game their band designed,” Sighed the anonymous member of an earlier slotted band. “It makes me feel dumb, so recently I’ve been wearing fake glasses and pretending to play a hammer dulcimer, I'm a sham.”

The Decemberists kicked off the west coast leg of their tour by opening a Los Angeles show with a commencement speech to recent UCLA grads.

Article by Chris Bratton.