Yeah Yeah Yeahs, April 30, Coachella 2006
this entry brought to you by the yeah yeah yeahs, "gold lion"
Despite having just released only their second album and just starting only their second headlining tour, Karen O has become a bit of a modern rock legend. The twenty minutes before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took the stage were filled was filled with the audience swapping stories about the last time people saw her, filling in those who were about to see her for the first time, and fresh-faced Yeahs fans wondering aloud things they'd read about her. "She spits beer at the audience!" said one enthusiastic fan in front of me. "I heard she gets naked!" said another.
You know you're going to see a real rock star when the antics of the lead singer supersede how great the music is (by comparison, the chit-chat between fans before the Massive Attack show focused on there being two drummers, and wondering which guest singers would show up). For the record, Karen O is a complete show-stealer. The band walked on stage right at dusk, Karen wearing a blinding red skirt with a giant scarf, and during the wonderfully tension-building opener, "Cheated Hearts", removed all unnecessary accessories while singing "I'm taking, taking, taking it off!", much to the delight of the audience. She strutted around like a peacock, a giant, infectious grin on her face that nearly never changed, posing as if doing a live-action slideshow of some weird interpretive dance, flexing, bouncing on-stage. At one point during the only song I didn't know, Karen bent backwards like the infamous spider-walk from The Exorcist, the mic inside her mouth, hands-free, doing her famous shriek. It was simultaneously the most scary-bizarre, yet captivating spectacle outside of a Marilyn Manson concert, except Karen stood up from it with a sheepish grin like the girl next door after shouting "Look what I can do!" Since her accident in Australia that left her hospitalized, her stage presence has been calmed down a touch-- there was no beer spitting, and she did not get naked (something I doubt she ever did). But she was also completely impossible to take your eyes off of.
The band themselves, guitarist Nick Zinner, drummer Brian Chase, and touring multi-instrumentalist Imaad Waasif (who I've already been familiar with from his work in the most recent incarnation of Folk Implosion), managed a surprisingly tight, nearly flawless set that took their already live-sounding records and made them bigger and incredibly concise. Zinner was very focused and is a great guitarist, and when not getting the audience moving with his rhythmic riffage, he was very interested in getting weird sounds from his guitar. Drummer Brian Chase seemed somewhat bored for the first few minutes, but it turns out that what he was doing was pacing himself, working himself into a steady, stomping groove.
The set ended with the sun having just set with "Maps" (which began with a very appreciative Karen O thanking the audience for being the biggest they'd ever played to-- you're welcome, Karen), "Warrior", off the new album, and finally "Y Control", which features the chorus "I wish I could buy back/ the woman you stole", and it made me think about articles I'd read of the band just before the released of Show Your Bones. Karen was frustrated about feeling exploited by certain aspects of the media-- she had used her sexuality as a weapon, but it backfired on her when magazines used her sexuality to make money. And I thought about that lyric and how it might have meant one thing when it was first written-- probably about an ex-love-- but now that they're playing to the biggest audience of their career, could Karen be thinking the one who stole the woman she used to be was us? If she was thinking this it certainly didn't show, as Karen skipped around the stage, happily crooning the words to a song the audience were ecstatic to hear and excitedly sang along to. After all, if The Yeah Yeah Years weren't the most accomplished of bands that night, Karen O was certainly the biggest rock star, and nobody, not even those realizing the irony in the lyrics being sung along to, can resist a rock star.
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with love from CRS @ 9:38 PM
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Despite having just released only their second album and just starting only their second headlining tour, Karen O has become a bit of a modern rock legend. The twenty minutes before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took the stage were filled was filled with the audience swapping stories about the last time people saw her, filling in those who were about to see her for the first time, and fresh-faced Yeahs fans wondering aloud things they'd read about her. "She spits beer at the audience!" said one enthusiastic fan in front of me. "I heard she gets naked!" said another.
You know you're going to see a real rock star when the antics of the lead singer supersede how great the music is (by comparison, the chit-chat between fans before the Massive Attack show focused on there being two drummers, and wondering which guest singers would show up). For the record, Karen O is a complete show-stealer. The band walked on stage right at dusk, Karen wearing a blinding red skirt with a giant scarf, and during the wonderfully tension-building opener, "Cheated Hearts", removed all unnecessary accessories while singing "I'm taking, taking, taking it off!", much to the delight of the audience. She strutted around like a peacock, a giant, infectious grin on her face that nearly never changed, posing as if doing a live-action slideshow of some weird interpretive dance, flexing, bouncing on-stage. At one point during the only song I didn't know, Karen bent backwards like the infamous spider-walk from The Exorcist, the mic inside her mouth, hands-free, doing her famous shriek. It was simultaneously the most scary-bizarre, yet captivating spectacle outside of a Marilyn Manson concert, except Karen stood up from it with a sheepish grin like the girl next door after shouting "Look what I can do!" Since her accident in Australia that left her hospitalized, her stage presence has been calmed down a touch-- there was no beer spitting, and she did not get naked (something I doubt she ever did). But she was also completely impossible to take your eyes off of.
The band themselves, guitarist Nick Zinner, drummer Brian Chase, and touring multi-instrumentalist Imaad Waasif (who I've already been familiar with from his work in the most recent incarnation of Folk Implosion), managed a surprisingly tight, nearly flawless set that took their already live-sounding records and made them bigger and incredibly concise. Zinner was very focused and is a great guitarist, and when not getting the audience moving with his rhythmic riffage, he was very interested in getting weird sounds from his guitar. Drummer Brian Chase seemed somewhat bored for the first few minutes, but it turns out that what he was doing was pacing himself, working himself into a steady, stomping groove.
The set ended with the sun having just set with "Maps" (which began with a very appreciative Karen O thanking the audience for being the biggest they'd ever played to-- you're welcome, Karen), "Warrior", off the new album, and finally "Y Control", which features the chorus "I wish I could buy back/ the woman you stole", and it made me think about articles I'd read of the band just before the released of Show Your Bones. Karen was frustrated about feeling exploited by certain aspects of the media-- she had used her sexuality as a weapon, but it backfired on her when magazines used her sexuality to make money. And I thought about that lyric and how it might have meant one thing when it was first written-- probably about an ex-love-- but now that they're playing to the biggest audience of their career, could Karen be thinking the one who stole the woman she used to be was us? If she was thinking this it certainly didn't show, as Karen skipped around the stage, happily crooning the words to a song the audience were ecstatic to hear and excitedly sang along to. After all, if The Yeah Yeah Years weren't the most accomplished of bands that night, Karen O was certainly the biggest rock star, and nobody, not even those realizing the irony in the lyrics being sung along to, can resist a rock star.
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