Andrew Bird’s Fourteenth Annual Gezelligheid at Fourth Presbyterian Church

Dec 15, 2025 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

By Andrea Ingrande

There is a particular generosity at the heart of Andrew Bird’s Gezelligheid. Over the years, it has become less a concert and more a shared practice, one that values presence over performance. On Friday night, Bird offered that invitation inside Fourth Presbyterian Church, a Chicago landmark rebuilt after the Great Chicago Fire and long shaped by resilience. The convergence of intention and community made the evening feel rooted, joyful, and distinctly Chicagoan.

Gezelligheid is a Dutch word often translated as “coziness” or “conviviality,” though that feels insufficient in this context. It is less about comfort and more about connection, the kind created when people gather with deliberate care. Bird has been bringing that idea to Chicago for fourteen years, turning the long, dark stretch of December into something warmer and shared. In this setting, the meaning deepened. You didn’t need to practice religion to feel the reverence in the room. You only needed to recognize craft, in the stone and glass around us and in the music of a master of their own.

Andrew Bird is a Chicago artist not because he says so, but because his work reflects the city’s way of moving through the world: observant, steadfast, tender without being precious. There was something especially fitting about hearing his music here, in a building shaped by patience and devotion, honoring the history of creativity and wonder that has always lived in this city. The space didn’t compete with the music. It amplified it.

The evening opened with Body Sound, a project from Lia Kohl, Macie Stewart, and Whitney Johnson, whose improvised ambient set felt exploratory and unguarded. Their sound moved slowly, expanding and contracting like breath, evoking the emotional openness of Dirty Three or the atmospheric exploration of Stars of the Lid while remaining entirely their own. It was music that invited listening rather than demanding it, setting a tone of curiosity and presence that carried through the night.

Bird took the stage with longtime collaborator Alan Hampton and later welcomed Nora O’Connor, whose addition transformed the room. Their three-part harmonies were exquisite, measured, deliberate, and deeply felt. Every note landed with clarity. At times, the silence between phrases felt just as important as the music itself. You could hear the room listening.

The set traveled widely without ever losing its center. Bird introduced “Death of a Cowboy,” inspired by family memoirs and performed publicly for the first time, conjuring pastoral imagery and fading mythologies. The journey later stretched toward ancient Greece, shaped by Albert Camus’ absurdist view of a world without God, the irony of our setting not lost on us as we joined together in the chorus of Bird’s 2019 song “Sisyphus.” And again and again, Bird brought us back to Chicago.

“Pulaski at Night” felt like an anchor, a song that holds the city with particular tenderness, myself included. There are certain pieces of music that change meaning as your life does. This one has always carried a particular weight for me. Years ago, after leaving Chicago, it ached with distance, echoing Bird’s plea to “come back to Chicago, city of light.” Now, living here again, on Pulaski no less, it feels different, perhaps even closer to my heart. That evolution mirrored the night itself: familiar, comfortable, but newly alive. The idea of Gezelligheid made perfect sense to me at that moment.

Every so often, a siren passed outside on Michigan Avenue, briefly pulling us back into the world beyond the walls. It was a reminder of the year we’ve had and of the weight many people carried into the room. But inside, there was a sense of safety. The space and the performers asked nothing of us, only that we arrived as we were, carrying whatever the year had given us.

By the time the final notes faded, it was clear that Gezelligheid is not just a concert. It is a careful gathering. A reminder that art, when offered with intention, can feel sacred without asking anything in return. In a city shaped by resilience and community, this felt like the perfect way to come together this holiday season, voices rising in harmony, laughter and revolutionary joy beneath the ceiling of a sacred room.

For more on Andrew Bird, click here

For photos from Andrew Bird’s performance, click here

For photos from Body Sound, click here

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Setlist: Andrew Bird live at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL – Sept 12, 2025