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Review Fri Mar 16 2007
TVOTR: Wooly and Wonderful
[Posting for Kara, who's computer's a bit lo-fi today]
TV on the Radio's March 13 show at the Metro was a Distortion Lover's Delight, with both opener and headliner featuring heavy, thorax-vibrating bass and plenty of arty-pop weirdness.
Opening band Subtle was anything but. The Oakland, Calif.-based band's set was largely a frenzied, theatrical free-for-all of dance beats and heavily orchestrated rhythms. MC Doseone, the rapping frontman, made for an interesting mix of Thomas Dolby-meets-Mike Patton-meets-Elton John, though he often got mired in his own props. C'mon — how many skulls can a man reasonably use during one set?
After a lengthy set-up, TV on the Radio's entrance was marked by guitarist/singer Kyp Malone's awe-inspiring afro/facial hair combo (facefro?). Cue crowd going wild, and the band immediately kicked off their set. Songs from their new album, Return to Cookie Mountain, held up onstage as well as they do on the record — an impressive feat, considering their penchant for the odd, often hypnotically discordant harmonies by Malone and singer Tunde Adebimpe. Adebimpe, who was all hips and flailing arms, whipped the crowd into a dance-a-thon with what amounts to TVOTR's most radio-friendly hit, "Wolf Like Me." Equally effective was their ability to rework songs from their older albums, creating something unrecognizable until the lyrics began. "Satellite" became a punk tune, while "The Wrong Way" dug in its rockabilly heels. Members of Subtle and the stage crew joined TVOTR for their encore numbers to great effect, lending both a lusher percussive element and a certain wildness onstage.