| AoL @ CMJ, Part 2: The Knife @ Webster Hall |
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| Written by Nicole Steinberg | |
| Wednesday, 08 November 2006 | |
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I know I promised to write at length about The Knife at Webster Hall, but every other blog in existence has already done it and I probably don’t remember the details anymore. Please forgive the delay; I’ve had the plague since the end of CMJ, but I’ll do the best that I can. Here are some highlights from the evening: long lines, talking heads, ski masks, lasers, brown creatures running with pencils, awkward yet exuberant Swedish dancing. And that ain’t all. After the BrooklynVegan show at Pianos, I walked down to the village, had a lovely dinner and then made my way to Webster Hall, five minutes before doors were meant to open for the early show of the night (the original show had been scheduled at 8 PM, and when it sold out quickly, they bumped that show to 6 PM, and added another show later that night, with doors at 10:15 PM). I had hoped I’d get in easily, but instead I had to wait in a line that stretched around the block and didn’t get into the venue until 6:35. I made my way to the balcony, exhausted from my earlier show, and whittled away the excruciating hour-long wait for The Knife to go on at 7:30, while a lackluster DJ played, whose name I can’t remember. I will say that it was the most packed I’ve seen Webster Hall ever (except for maybe Sleater-Kinney’s final NYC performance there this past August) and everyone is right when they say that The Knife’s live show is an audiovisual experience that’s not to be missed. I made the mistake of standing in the balcony, close to the stage, instead of securing a spot behind the technicians. I couldn’t see the visual aspects of the show as well as people who were looking at the stage head-on. But I did get to see Olof and Karin dancing between their screens on stage, getting down to their own brand of dark, goth electropop that had the entire venue mesmerized. They were dressed all in black, with ski masks on to completely obscure their identities. Aside from Karin’s placement by the microphone, it was hard to tell who was the woman and who was the man. It was a nice complement to her vocals, which drift between masculine and feminine, making it unclear just who is delivering them. Many couldn’t believe that her vocals were live, but they were. What wasn’t live (as far as I could tell from being so close) was Olof’s percussion; he was banging on a drumpad of sorts, but did so even when there were no accompanying beats. Other times, his strikes were out of time with the music, and soon it was evident he was merely having a grand ol’ time. Visuals were shot onto the screen that hung in front of the duo and behind them as well, ranging from cool laser shows to animated adventures, as in encore song “Like A Pen,” where the music video played that consisted of a tiny, brown, furry creature, running around with a writing instrument clutched between his paws. That was a great number, as well as “Heartbeats,” the brilliant hit “We Share Our Mother’s Health,” and heart-thumping “Forest Families,” where Karin’s androgynous croons were sexy and serene, as well as threatening and terrifying. “Marble House” was probably my favorite performance of the evening. The visuals consisted of a spooky but stately-looking house projected onto the screen that resembled a mausoleum, with a talking head on the left side of the stage, singing along forlornly with Karin’s vocals. At the end of the song, the slightly gnarled, unattractive man’s face morphed into a skull. It was haunting, not to mention strange, and altogether serious business. The show veered more towards performance art than a rock concert, and it’s because of this that I was awed and humbled to be a part of it, The Knife’s first performance on American soil ever. The show only lasted an hour, and people seemed bewildered that there wasn’t a longer set or a second encore. It was still worth the thirty bucks I paid to get in, and worth going alone. I made some tiny friends in the balcony and had the opportunity to explain to a security guard who The Knife were and what their deal was. He seemed to like the show; he was a fan of the recent shows there by The Killers and My Chemical Romance, so maybe this was a step in the right direction. If you ever get the opportunity to see them, make sure you’re standing towards the back. Here’s the setlist for the curious: |
