Concert Review

Artists: Amanda Blank, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Venue: Kool Haus

Where: Toronto, ON

Date: August 4, 2009

Reviewed by Sarah Rix (Toronto)

Anyone that knows of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs understands that seeing them live is an absolute must. Front woman Karen O exudes this manic energy that is unmatched by most, if not all, of her male indie rock counterparts. Throw in guitarist Nick Zinner’s slender frame and understated rock star sensibilities, plus drummer Brian Chase’s steady dance beats and all-too apparent happiness to be there, and it was simply a night of joy  and confetti... an excessive amount of confetti.

On Tuesday night, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs played the first of two sold-out Toronto shows. In fact Tuesday was a night of many musical heavyweights in the city. At a sold-out Massey Hall, Fleet Foxes wooed audiences with their hymn-like folk music while Amazing Baby provided a solid up-and-coming indie alternative at the Drake Hotel. Really though, the choice was clear. If there was one show that would get the music enthusiasts going, it was going to be at the Kool Haus. In the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' first visit to Toronto in two years, and with a new, much more synth-orientated album - ’It’s Blitz!’ - to promote, by the end of the night the front of the room could have provided enough energy to power its fair share of electrical appliances. Blitz on the dance floor indeed.

Opening act Amanda Blank was downright adorable in her attempts. She came on stage with a fair share of pep and bounce, obviously enjoying the opportunity that came with opening for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. For the Yeah Yeah Yeahs themselves, they’ve been enjoying an increasingly large amount of exposure since the April 2009 release of their third full-length album. ‘It’s Blitz!’ is far and away the most accessible and radio friendly of their releases to date, garnering its fair share of critical and fan acclaim. With such high standards to live up to and with such a yearning anticipation for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs emanating from the audience for the duration of Blank’s set, if anything can really be said about Blank’s performance, it’s that she knew she was there to prepare people for the reigning queen of indie, Karen O.

Frankly, if Amy Winehouse and Lights had a fast-talking, rapping love-child, it would resemble Amanda Blank. She danced around barefoot on stage, half singing, half rapping her way through a selection of songs off of her new album, ‘I Love You’. While she came on stage with an absolute punch, it was unfortunate that she wasn’t able to maintain the energy level. Try as she might, and as fast as she could rap, songs like ‘Might Like You Better’ - which was fundamentally a song about liking someone more after sleeping with them - just didn’t swing Blank into the audience’s favour. Throw in the fact that she exclaimed “We have one more song!” roughly four times throughout, and her set sort of dragged on and on. Nevertheless, as she left the stage, the crowd settled into the hype very nicely. I probably won’t pursue her music, but I was left with a tingling sense of ‘what happens next is going to be fantastic’. If that was Blank’s intention - to leave people with a sense of impending excitement - then she filled the role of opener very nicely.

Once the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took to the stage, everyone may as well have been inhaling some sort of love potion. The amount of admiration lauded on this band from the audience was absolutely absurd and altogether highly contagious. It’s hard not to have such deep respect for a group that seems to be so in love with what they get to do every night. Even during the points of the concert where they were unable to match the magnitude of their original recorded versions (specifically during ‘Dull Life’), it all came away as being absolutely brilliant. Highlights of the show ranged from the highly energetic ‘Heads Will Roll’, which has fast become my favourite song of the past few years, to the extensive amount of confetti that rained from the sky during ‘Skeletons’ and show closer ‘Date With The Night’.

The audience was jumping around and singing back every word to a band that threw back just as much energy as they were given. “Dance, dance, dance till you’re dead” came the chant during ‘Heads Will Roll’, and the lyrics were right. It was a night of celebration, high energy and fantastic showmanship. What you expect the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to deliver they bring in droves. You also can’t deny Karen O’s stage presence. She knows what she’s doing and she knows that she’s doing it well.

The band isn’t just about the front woman though, and while she certainly attracts the majority of the audience’s attention with her antics of spitting out water and dancing around in bright neon garb, both Zinner and Chase are brilliant with what they do. While guitarist Zinner came off as being quiet, serious and dedicated towards getting the job done right, Chase could often be seen quite frequently offering a broad grin from behind his drum set. This was what this night was about - the joy that the New York band found in performing their music. Directly before crowd pleaser ‘Maps’, which was performed acoustically, Karen O described the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' love of Toronto. It wasn’t just a throwaway line said to win over an audience. They meant it, and it was one of the most sincere moments I’ve ever witnessed from a live band. The love song, while drastically different from the drum-and-bass orientated recording, was a blissfully co-ordinated moment as the packed house sung out their lungs, as if to tell the Yeah Yeah Yeahs that they love the band just as much as the band (who eventually ended up adding three extra songs to their pre-planned one song encore) seems to love Toronto.

Written by :

Sarah

 

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