The band Bon Iver is known by many for their emotional acoustic songs that make up their first album “For Emma, Forever Ago.” Ten years ago, the band’s lead singer Justin Vernon wrote the album to reflect the cold, dark winters he experienced in a cabin in Northern Wisconsin, coping with a breakup. Now, a decade later and with a very different sound, Bon Iver remains a well known indie artist name.
With the dawn of their new album “22, A Million,” came a long tour which began in Vernon’s hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Bon Iver has toured all around the world since the album release in September of 2016. After performing everywhere  from Wisconsin to Denmark to Spain, Bon Iver finally made it to Atlanta’s own Fox Theatre in November of 2017. Coincidentally, the band performed in Atlanta one day after the 10 year anniversary of their first album, “For Emma, Forever Ago.”
The Fox Theatre provided a magical venue for the performance. Many people go to concerts to jump up and down and scream the words to their favorite songs, but the atmosphere of the Bon Iver concert was much more calming. With the Fox’s projection of a night sky overhead and the grand, elegant design of the theatre itself, the concert was far from average.
I went into the concert expecting to hear the classic, sorrow-filled Bon Iver songs accompanied by a guitar and Vernon’s falsetto voice, but was surprised to hear almost all songs from his new album that I had not heard before. The newest album,“22, A Million”, has a drastically different sound than the first few albums, making it hard to find any similarities between the old albums and the  new, eclectic one.
Many songs on the new album feature Vernon’s voice with a T-pain like, autotune effect. much deeper than before. Some of these electronic songs are accompanied by a saxophone. This mix of unlike sounds makes for a complex, uncommon sounding album. Some songs have the same relaxing effect that an old song such as “Beach Baby” has on the listener. Others are extremely experimental sounding and much different than the average song with a hook and a chorus.
Not only do the newer songs sound different, but their song titles are very unusual as well. With song names like “(OVER S??N),” “666 ?,” “8 (circle),” “____45_____,” and “10 d E A T h b R E a s T ? ?,” one can already assume that the album will be like nothing they have ever heard before. While they did play mostly new songs, they sprinkled in a few older songs such as “Perth,” “Woods,” and “Holocene,” and ended with the ultimate Bon Iver classic, “Skinny Love,” in honor of the 10 year album anniversary.
Bon Iver’s “22, A Million” tour was different than any concert I have ever attended. While many of the songs were ones I didn’t know, that made it all the more intriguing to listen to, as I was surprised by the wide-ranging sounds put together to make music. While I can’t say the concert was exactly what I was expecting when I bought my ticket,  I believe that many others, like me, will be happily surprised to hear the band’s new sound in concert.