TV On The Radio
Tags: TV On The RadioEXCLUSIVE REVIEW: TV On The Radio
Story by David Searle -March 8th @ The Vogue
It is very rare in Indianapolis to see a live show by a band at the peak of its powers. Often it feels as though bands who pass through our fair city are either about to blow up (like The Strokes at Birdy’s several years ago), are just coming down from their career highs (Sufjan Stevens at the end of ‘06), or are reliving days of glories past (The Lemonheads recently).So it was a rare treat to experience TV On The Radio at The Vogue last night. If major music publications (and their indie-cred counterparts) gave out actual physical trophies with their top ten lists, TVOTR would have to rent a warehouse to store them all. You couldn’t get very far in the critical music canon without hearing about the Mario Brothers 2-named Return To Cookie Mountain, and every hipster from coast to coast had the lyrics to ‘Wolf Like Me’ on their lips. And clearly, they were still riding high on that wave come Thursday night.
Pre-show, I was concerned. I recalled my experience seeing Blonde Redhead several years ago. A cool band that makes sonically dense records sounds like the perfect band to see live, am I right? But someone forgot to tell the sound engineer for Redhead, because I literally had to walk out of the ear-destroying, cat-nails-on-a-chalkboard sound. I feared that TVOTR might succumb to the same aural trappings.
Thankfully, they were smart enough to realize that a great guitar sound doesn’t need to go to eleven to blow the room away. What’s the point on spending all that money on guitar pedals if you drown the room out with a whitewash of noise? An ace rhythm section that sounded more like a heartbeat that a metronome allowed Kyp Malone’s guitar to cut right to the core.
The music wasn’t the kind of tunes you needed to ‘get.’ You didn’t need the Pitchfork Media’s Guide to the Musical Galaxy to translate the sound into something you could feel. It was the kind of show where complete strangers wandered into The Vogue, compelled by a friend who knew the ropes, and listened for five seconds and thought “yeah, this is it.” Remember that Onion article ‘Concert Ruined By Guy Enjoying Himself’ that had the line “everyone at a show is standing there, arms folded, having a great time?” All those guys who usually stand there in the hipster pose (guilty) couldn’t help themselves. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t Dance Dance Revolution out there, but it was like a Timberlake video compared to the usual unwavering crush these bands typically attract.
It will be a long time before I let the image of two girls grind dancing to ‘Province’ slip out of my mind. They were students at Butler who heard that this was the hottest ticket in town and bought tickets for a friend’s birthday. Who knew that indie-rock was so bootylicious?
The obvious highlight was ‘Wolf Like Me.’ I would like to say that it was more intense live than it is on record, but how could it be? However, the intensity of the single was matched last night, and that is a feat all by itself. The encore saw the band bring out their friends and opening act Subtle (whose lead singer looked like he just jumped out of an A-Ha video and whom TVOTR thanked repeatedly from the stage) for a bare-bones version of ‘A Method.’ A bass guitar was the only accompaniment for voices and all the percussion could could find in a typical music shop. The night was closed out by a fist-pumping version of former “it” song ‘Staring At The Sun.’
My friend Aaron (whose knowledge of the show prior to the start consisted solely of the fact that he was getting in for free) turned to me midway through the show and asked “What genre is this?” I replied, “Exactly.”
– David Searle —
