Good Weather For Airstrikes

PREFACE: Computer issues be damned, I’m back and ready to get things back on track around here. I’ve got a shit ton of new goodness to bestow upon you all, but lest it get lost in the shuffle, the next three or four days will be spent revisiting my incredible CMJ experience from earlier this month.

While CMJ began on Monday, the quality of shows was heavily back-loaded, with the first huge event of the week going down on Wednesday night at Webster Hall. It was there that the Knife took the stage for the first time ever on American soil, playing back to back shows at 6 and 10 PM at the optimally-equipped (perfect sound system set-up) Webster Music Hall. Due to school obligations (pfft) the Knife show was also my first taste of CMJ, and it was an incredible start to what would prove to be an unforgettable four days of concert-going and debauchery.

THE KNIFE @ WEBSTER MUSIC HALL

My last class ended in Charlottesville at 1:50, and two hours by car, three hours by train and a joint-and-a-half later, I was outside of Webster with fellow former VICE intern Rya, my elevated consciousness providing the perfect climate within which to take in such a seismic event. And fuck if my mind wasn’t blown at least a thousand times over. We settled at our spot in the sold-out crowd just as the steel drums of “Pass This On” were helping people to realize just how life-changing the performance they’d be witnessing for the next 90 minutes would be. Any blogger worth their shit in the NYC metropolitan area was in attendance (and make a point to read James‘ review of their L.A. show a few days later here), so I’m sure you’ve heard it all before, but a quick word on the ridiculous stage set up, courtesy of Stereogum who described it as accurately and concisely as possible:

“…A scrim pulled before a spare stage, with the oh-so-mysterious siblings rocking a deep shade of Blue Man Group face paint and two instrument stations with jags and crosses of blacklight-reactive tape. The stage had four huge puppet heads lined up left-to-right at rear stage, which had everything from blinking, three-eyed ghouls to normal human faces singing along to select songs… With The Wall-at-your-local-planetarium type laser images projected on the scrim, and modern art styled animation clips racing across the back screen, the duo did their thing…”

And do their thing they did. “Pass This On” opened the enigmatic duo’s set, one of only three non-Silent Shout tracks performed, along with automatic crowd-pleaser “Heartbeats” and an incredible updated version of “Kino”. “Heartbeats” and “Pass This On” were the stand out tracks on the duo’s 2003 release, Deep Cuts, while “Kino” was the best track on their 2001 self-titled debut, and for those interested in exploring more off of the Knife’s history, Green Pea-ness has another great track from the Knife’s debut here. All three of the older songs were completely Silent Shout-ified in their live versions, being reworked into darker, more intense versions that fit better with the tone of the rest of their newer material. “Pass This On” sounded as if it’d been remixed with the title track off Silent Shout, with that incredible synth progression permeating the song flawlessly and the awesome steel drums the only part of the original instrumentation that survived the reworking.

The undeniable highlight of the evening was the single “We Share Our Mother’s Health,” which stunned with its visual accompaniment and the suffocating gravity of its alternately bouncing-and-pounding beat. It was game over for the easily-overwhelmed when Olaf’s massive “Do You Like It? Say You Want It!” verse rained down upon the crowd, but from our viewpoint it almost seemed as if Karin was singing both her own and her brother’s vocal parts (no confirmation of this, though). One thing is known however, that the elaborate movements accompanying Olaf’s “drumming,” were largely the product of pomp and circumstance, as all of the instrumentation had been pre-recorded to maintain synchronization with the visuals. Karin’s vocals, however, were performed live and sounded as brilliant as ever, mesmerizing those in attendance with its power and striking unconventional beauty.

Other highlights included “Silent Shout,” main set-closer “From Off to On” and one-track encore “Like a Pen,” as the audiovisual spectacle continued to delight and overwhelm in equal parts. The show was made by the remarkable light and video show and production budget, which was conceived by the Knife and composed and executed by frequent collaborator and oft-time music video director for the Knife, Swedish director-producer Andreas Nilsson. In the end, what is most remarkable is that a year ago the duo claimed that they didn’t “believe” in live music and now here we are 12 months later and they’re redefining it.

The Knife initially planned to only perform five shows before returning to the laboratory in which they were surely conceived, though their NYC shows marked their 12th and 13th performances and the following week saw them playing 4 more shows before their US mini-tour came to a close. Regardless of whether or not these dates marked the end of the Knife’s touring days, the experience has been captured on DVD for the thousands of you who will may never get the chance to see the duo astonish live. Silent Shout: An Audio-Visual Spectacular saw release last week in Sweden, while Amazon shows a 11/21 release date for the US, and though I’ve not seen the DVD, the audience-filmed YouTube videos are awesome enough in themselves to get me incredibly excited to have the opportunity to relive my Knife live experience over again and again in the near future. Below is the setlist from the show, with mp3 links leading to the flawlessly-recorded live audio from the CD portion of the Silent Shout: An Audio-Visual Spectacular DVD. Be sure to download the new, Silent Shout-ified live versions of “Pass This On”, “Heartbeats” and “Kino”, as well as three awesome remixes from the recent US release of Deep Cuts.

SETLIST
01. “Pass This On” [[Live MP3]]
02. “The Captain”
03. “We Share Our Mother’s Health” [[Live MP3]]
04. “You Make Me Like Charity”
05. “Marble House”
06. “Forest Families”
07. “Kino” [[Live MP3]]
08. “Heartbeats” [[Live MP3]]
09. “Silent Shout”
10. “From Off To On”
——————-
11. “Like A Pen”

Bonus Remix MP3s:
“Pass This On” (Dahlback & Dahlback Remix) - The Knife
“You Take My Breath Away” (Mylo Remix) - The Knife ((highly recommended))
“Heartbeats” (Rex The Dog Remix) - The Knife

VICE LATE NIGHT: 120 Days w/ The Virgins @ Cakeshop

After the final notes of “Like a Pen” finished resonating out over the largely speechless audience at Webster, we did our best to gather our wits about us and cruised over to Cakeshop on the lower east side. It was there that the first of three VICE “Late Night” parties was getting underway where 120 Days were set to play with support from the Virgins. The combination of bangin’ live performances and free dranx (Sparks and Budweiser Select, awh yeah) had the entrance packed with the hipster folk trying to get in, but VICE was nice enough to take care of us on the guest list despite our former-intern bitch status.

Inside was a more manageable scene, and I grabbed a free Sparks with ease. But with the clock creeping towards 2 with no sign of the Virgins (who were supposed to go on at 1), I decided to get back to Columbia (where I was crashing) at a reasonable hour. The knowledge that I’d be able to catch Days at any of their 120 other performances that week (seriously, Annuals and 120 Days alone combined to produce as many live performances in one week as some bands play in an entire year). Besides, having aleady witnessed the most awe-inspiring live performance of my life (sorry, Sigur Ros) I felt it unfair to judge two bands whose live shows could only disappoint in comparison to the Knife. So back to Columbia it was, and a $21 wallet-raping at the hands of a pricey cab ride later, I was back at Columbia to get some rest* before taking on the second day of my CMJ experience.

*In this case “rest” is used to describe the act of forgoing sleep to play 3 hours of beer pong and eventually falling asleep on the bare plastic of an inflatable aerobed in all of my clothes, but that’s beside the point. More tomorrow on the second day of my CMJ experience; it’s good to be back.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 18th, 2006 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.