There was a long, long...long long long wait for Andrew Bird to come on.  When he finally came on stage, he started playing violin in the darkness alone.  It was plucking at first with sound looping, but he then used the bow he was holding once the song's base was created.  There were no lyrics, but he added whistling which was on a majority of the songs.  I knew he whistled, but it was not until this show I realized how many songs it is in.  I suppose he must stay true to his last name.  The other band members came on after the next song, all in ties unlike Bird.  The full band began with "Master Sworn" which was dark in nature, but turned to a happier tone. At the fifth song, Bird asks the crowd how everyone's doing.  Someone shouted back, "How are you?"  He replied he was fine besides a low grade fever.  There was a loud "awwww" in response and Bird said, "That sympathy actually sounded genuine.  Thanks for your concern."  He also apologized not for playing in San Diego for a while, blaming it on an oversight of some kind.  Somehow fitting with his sickness announcement they next played "Fits and the Dizzy Spells."  Following this, "Natural Disaster" was played, Bird's personal favorite of his new release, "Noble Beast".Bird made a couple mistakes, but overall put on a polished performance.  It took a couple songs of singing for him to shine, but it might have been my own ears catching up.  One of his more percussion driven songs was written by the drummer Dosh, who Bird gave credit to before they began, though he added lyrics to it.  A couple of the opener, Lonely Dear came on for the next song which they had a part in.  Emil of Lonely Dear's back up vocals could not be heard during the quieter parts, but it did not detract from the music. Crackling was heard again on the next song as it was heard on Lonely Dear's last song.  Soma was sticking to their bad reputation.  It seemed to be caused when Bird hit a certain pitch, so he played an older song by himself instead.  They tried replacing a cable, but the crackling continued.  Bird said he was all out of tricks after playing another little unplanned song.  Dosh cued the club rap music causing some laughter.  Finally the crackle appeared to be fixed, but came back on the next song.  Bird asked the crowd how bad it was and some shouted that it was not that bad (it was).  They continued with the next song "Imitosis" which had the distracting crackling and an Andrew Bird mistake (perhaps caused by the crackling?).   

After getting to the last song, Bird thanked the audience and after playing walked off stage, but not for long.  Very soon they came back and played a couple more songs which included his usual whistling, though on one had him whistling into his violin.  He also did a silly folk sort of conversation with himself during a song; (kind of seriously, but not) "Why'd you do that?" "I didn't do nothing, what'd I do?" he asked himself.  After it ended he thanked the crowd once again and the show was over after about eighteen songs or so.  Bird lived up to his albums and was lively enough for his musical style with plenty of hand gestures when he had a free hand and head shaking with his violin strokes.  His thoughtful lyrics were given more weight by the intelligence in his voice, but sometimes his straight rhymes bothered me personally.  This is a small complaint though of a superb indie folk/pop musician.