Monday, April 26, 2004
I've got a bit behind with the reviews... I was gonig to write a piece on The Concretes yesterday, but quite frankly, I wasn't feeling very creative after the weekends Stag activities.
I've found the missing YYYs review and I'll get The Concretes one up tomorrow.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Kentish Town Forum
Tonight’s support is provided by a man in a mac called Devendra Banhart, and men is masks called The Locusts.
We roll up to the Forum about half way through Devendra’s set. Thinks of a bad Syd Barrett impersonator, playing a bad Doors cover version on his own, without a backing band. If this floats your boat then you’ll probably love Devendra. When he shuts up and plays the guitar the songs have a good melody. Similarly, when he sings a cappella he has a pretty good voice, but combine the two and they crash and grate.
Next on are The Locusts who arrive on stage in full Locust costumes complete with masks. They stand stock still for about 10 seconds staring out The Forum and then 4 raps on the snare and we’re crashed into an industrial wall of noise, which blows the froth of my pint of lager. About a minute later and the assault is over. There seem to be a few casualties at the front but this doesn’t stop The Locusts, who launch into the next aural attack.
Watching this band is like watching a video on forward scan. They play so damn fast, it must take so much practice to play this fast and load. Towards the end of the set a drum mic comes loose and the drum tech risks his life to attach it back to the tom-tom. Obviously he and the drummer can hear it, but for those of us not used to hearing anything played this fast, it makes to the power of the onslaught.
The last song lasts about ten minutes (that’s 10 times longer than most of the songs) and has three nasty keyboard solos that sound like someone grinding 2 pieces of metal together. It hurts a lot. The Forum are wholly unimpressed with The Locusts and they are (rather harshly) booed of at the end of their set.
It’s nearly 2 years since the first time we saw the YYYs at The Garage, and almost a year to the day since the release of their debut album Fever To Tell. In addition to the album we’ve had a string of great singles and Karen O has spawned a thousand clones, most of whom have ventured to The Forum for tonight, the middle night of a three night stint.
They start the set with the boys out front. When Karen runs out from the wings wearing a blue and white fairy costume the clones at the front pale in comparison and The Forum erupts.
We’re treated to all of the hits – amazing versions of Pin, Bang and Mystery Girl have the mosh pit in a frenzy. The set contains five new songs, four of these are a progression with fuller guitar sounds (the addition of chorus and phase to the standard spiky sound). One of these new songs steps to White Stripes territory – all of them are longer than we’ve come to expect from a YYYs track.
Its great to see the band on such a huge stage. Nic and Brian are pushed to the back and side to give Karen as much space as possible - and she uses every inch of it. She runs from one side to the other; she climbs across he monitors; one instant she’s smiling like a loon at the front row, but she never holds the same expression for more than a few seconds and then the other personalities that lives inside her bubbles to the top and she grimaces out at the adoring masses. The mic is her friend and her enemy. When she’s not singing or screeching into it she holds it as far as possible from herself, like it’s something very distasteful she found at the back of the stage. When she sings she holds the mic so close that at times she’s practically eating it. Part way through the set she grabs an easter egg and part devours it – foil and all – rubbing chocolate all over her Ziggy Stardust face paint.
For the encore Karen changes costume and comes on in a rather ill advised silver condom outfit. You can almost hear the clones working out where they can get one – expect to see similarly ill conceived fashion statements in your local indie disco soon. This is the only dodgy thing about this show.
