After more than 15 years of making music, orchestral folkster Andrew Bird is on the cusp of commercial success and will be coming to China as part of his current world tour. TALK caught up with the exhausted muso fresh from the stage and found out what audiences in Shanghai can expect from his live show.

Audiences can expect to see Andrew Bird giving everything he has on stage, as he sings, whistles, plays guitar, violin and glockenspiel, all while working the pedals of a looping station that layers the music over itself again and again. They should basically expect the unexpected.

“Often times I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Bird says thoughtfully. “I don’t like shows to be too scripted, but sometimes you don’t know if I’m going to get to the violin in time or sometimes there’s a loop that’s a little lopsided. Let’s just say it’s very human and failure is part of the performance”

And it’s a tad more Jamie Oliver than fans might expect from a gig: “It is very seat of the pants and improvisatory and it’s just a bit of a feverish sort of weird cooking show,” he adds.

Although Bird is known as a perfectionist in the studio – he famously scrapped the album The Mysterious Production of Eggs in its entirety … twice – he embraces the risk and rewards that come from the high-wire of performing live.

“Mistakes snap you out of anything automatic and make that show distinct from any other and it makes people think that they’re not just watching someone recreate their record on stage note for note,” he says. “They realise I’m making music for them right now and they’re in this room with other people sharing that.”

The 36 year old Bird was raised in Chicago by an artist mother who had visions of her four children playing classical music. Bird began violin lessons at 4 years old using the Suzuki method, which stresses learning by ear.

“Sometimes the way words sound can make you feel something, can cause an emotional resonance and the meaning hopefully corresponds with that.”

Bird is characteristically humble about his classical achievements. “I was not a good student of classical music,” he says. “I kind of drove my teachers nuts and I just wasn’t cut out for it but I did stick it out and get pretty good at my instrument.”

When Bird says “pretty good”, what he really means is that he was one of the talented few accepted into the prestigious conservatory at Northwestern University. But it wasn’t long before his yearning for improvisation led him to chafe against the restrictions of traditional classical training.

That background has almost certainly been a major contributing factor in the orchestral grandness of Bird’s compositions. He manages to combine sounds as spare and individual as a whistled tune with the crescendo of strings along with his unique lyrical phrasing in songs in which sounds tell as much, if not more of the story than the actual words.

“Well hopefully you get both,” Bird says. “Sometimes the way words sound can make you feel something, can cause an emotional resonance and the meaning hopefully corresponds with that.”

Onomatopoeic song titles like ‘Tenuousness’ from the 2009 album, Noble Beast, are distinctively Andrew Bird-ian. “Tenuousness is a rickety rope bridge of a word,” he explains. “It demonstrates in the sound exactly what it means and that’s what the song does as well. I guess I’m a bit impressionistic with lyrics.”

As his career develops, Bird has also made his music more personal, away from the self-proclaimed “persona” of his early work. The move has been a frightening, but rewarding one for Bird both creatively and commercially.

“It certainly makes everything a little more intense and a little life or death from show to show,” he says of his recent success. “You know it has been a long road and you think, ‘Oh crap it’s finally coming and oh crap, don’t let yourself down now.’

If it happened when I was younger I might be a little more cocky and think, ‘Oh yeah, this is supposed to happen,’ but I know it didn’t have to happen.”

Despite the ups and downs of his career, one thing that has remained constant for Bird has been his dedication to his fans, whose numbers continue to grow with each album and tour.

“You gotta keep pinching yourself and reminding yourself every show that this is a really cool thing,” he says. “People come out of their apartments and gather together and I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep it alive and interesting.”

9pm, 29 January. RMB 150 (pre-sale) or 180 (at door). Zhijiang Dream Factory, 4F, Building B, 28 Yuyao Lu, near Xikang Lu. Tel: 6255 4062. Email: [email protected]