Music: Big Thief closes Missoula’s outdoors concert season
William Munoz
Scheduling an outdoor concert in October in Montana comes with weather risks. A couple years ago, the Robert Plant concert in late September was greeted with temps in the 40’s (the next day it snowed).
This year Big Thief closed out the 2026 concert season with pleasant (for this time year) temperatures in the 60’s, which for the sold-out crowd was perfect.
The band formed in 2015 after the members attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia, along with recent addition Joshua Crumbly, make up the current band. They are highly trained musicians that bring a level of complexity to the songs that Lenker writes.
She writes from her own personal life dynamics. She has been writing from early in her childhood as a means to deal with her parents' divorce. She approaches song writing as a diary, choosing what to share, keeping some emotions private. She gives a unique voice to her guitar that moves easily from peaceful notes to shredding with the best of hard rockers.
What could easily be jarring is how her voice can move from gritty vibrato texture to a lighter register that is delicate, giving a sense of floating in the air. She is in complete harmony with the lyrics she has written and how to deliver to an audience what she is feeling.
As a wordsmith, Lenker is conscious of sharing her innermost emotions while holding back what is only for her. There’s a sense that she has more to tell but will not let it out. Maybe it’s too personal or perhaps it’s just that she understands that each listener needs to take responsibility for dealing with the deeper emotions.
Lenker has a large body of work that clearly indicates she has more to say. Her band mates are an integral part of growing the songs into what gets on an album. Krivchenia and Crumbly on drums and bass are perfectly holding the live performance, allowing the guitars of Lenker and Meek to be the feature without being overpowering.
The sound engineer at the concert had a great feel for the subtle mix to bring the words, voice and instruments to harmonious balance, not something that is easy, especially when outdoors.
