Saturday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles: a long line of Bon Iver fans, thickly bearded, wait patiently for a show. There will be no music, however—at least none played by Justin Vernon, who’s lacing up a fresh pair of salmon-colored Devin Booker Nikes. He’s here to play pick-up basketball, like he often does, even though he’s nursing a recently rolled ankle. “It’s sore, but I’m gonna be aight,” he says about 15 minutes before game time, looking over the new shoes. His signature beanie has been swapped for a bandana sweatband.
Vernon doesn’t want to tour anytime soon — perhaps ever again in the traditional sense, if you think he’s not bluffing. So the best bet for fans to see him perform in support of SABLE, fABLE, the new, uncharacteristically buoyant Bon Iver album, is to cram into the Terasaki Budokan gym in Little Tokyo and observe his jump shot. Why promote an album with a basketball game? “Well, the whole record is about steering to the sunlight or whatever, and being happy,” he considers. “So that’s what we’re doing.”
It’s a celebrity tournament, but not in the truest sense. There are a few recognizable faces throwing on custom Sables or Fables jerseys, like Travis Bennett, a.k.a. Taco from Odd Future, a.k.a. Elz from Dave (Fables; #69; confident and aggressive with the ball in his hands). But for the most part the four teams are made up of everyday people whom Vernon plays with at a gym in nearby Silver Lake.
“When I moved to L.A.,” Vernon says, “my first real friends I made that weren’t in music were just friends I made at the coffee shop. And we just started playing hoops together.” At least one of the players getting ready on the sidelines, a lawyer named Ben Covington (Sables, #1984, strong outside shooter), doesn’t even know the host—this is more of a friend-of-a-friend type thing. “We play in a rec league,” Covington says, eyeing the crowd, “but there’s never people watching.”
The setup is a four-team bracket, with the winners of the first two games then fighting for the championship. (The prize: bragging rights, and whatever beer is left in the VIP area after the losing teams are through with it.) The backboards have been updated with the black-and-salmon color scheme of the album, and a slightly alien-ish salmon basketball is used in the games. Outside, tinned Atlantic salmon from the Bon Iver x Fishwife collab —no, really—is being handed out.
Vernon (Sables, #21) is one of the taller players on the floor for the first game—a hearty, Wisconsin-bred six-foot-three—and sets the tone on the first possession after the tip: a pump fake to draw the defender in, followed by a pass out to assist a teammate on a deep three. This is a good representation of Vernon’s game—turning down open shots to find better looks elsewhere on the floor. Getting everyone involved. Though he admits his vertical has shrunk “in half” in the last decade, he still has a knack for boxing out and grabbing boards.
When Vernon shoots, it’s usually a Midwestern-worthy midrange turnaround; he hits one early on and then mimes a gun going back in its holster. Scouts looking for a player comp might do well with retired French power forward Boris Diaw. (Vernon, having grown up in the sports franchise no man’s land of Eau Claire, roots for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, for those keeping score.)
Danielle Haim, who features on the SABLE, fABLE track “If Only I Could Wait,” is watching from the sidelines, and her sister Este sits down next to her in the second quarter. One of Vernon’s teammates ends up on the floor with no call, and Este seizes on it: “That’s a fouuuuuuulllll,” she yells. The refs appear to hear her and proceed to stop swallowing their whistle for the rest of the afternoon.
Vernon says he thinks of basketball like jazz: “You’re improvising in a form, and you’re flowing, and you’re following momentum, and you’re retreating from momentum, you’re following the lead energy. It’s exactly like jazz.” Poetry in motion, but also notably a team sport—knowing how to guide while also getting others involved. There’s a rhythm. It’s the shots you don’t take.
The first do-or-die game is surprisingly close and physical as the fourth quarter starts to wind down, and Vernon’s Sables are trying to close the gap. Down three with the clock about to expire, one of Vernon’s teammates heaves up a halfcourt Hail Mary. It’s a good look—but runs out of gas just before the basket. This was coming out of a timeout, meaning Vernon clearly didn’t ask for the ball. Bon Iver is a band now—not a solo project—for a reason. He doesn’t want to be on his own in the damn woods anymore.
“That only happened once, and I got For Emma out of it,” Vernon says. “But you’re never really on your own, even though you think you are.”
