The Yeah Yeah Yeahs- 04/07/2006 - Orpheum, Boston, MA
So, yes, I'm not as crazy about the current Yeah Yeah Yeahs album
as I was the last.
I hate admitting things like this though because one of my roommates
absolutely delights in teasing me when I dislike second
albums. Actually, now that I'm thinking about this, why does she
find this so amusing? What's wrong with disliking an album? I
protest in the name of opinion freedom!
But I digress. The important thing to know is that the second
album feels like it's missing something. A certain energy and
umph that the first album and EP both contained. The music is
there, the technical skills are all present, but there's a final
connection missing.
The same was true for this concert. The band came onstage and
was attacked by applause and adoration from the crowd, but the
set list felt choppy and the songs fought with each other during
transitions. Karen O was there in all her glory, but the sheer
size of the Orpheum made it hard to connect with her and the band
as a whole. While I could blame all of this on the venue, I don't
think I can. I recently saw Franz Ferdinand there and that band
managed to reach out and up into the entire audience and pull
them all in. It can be done.
The light show however was a resounding and amazing success.
Designed to light the stage in a zig-zag pattern, the top and
bottom colors in the 'zag shifted from song to song to suit the
mood. Sometimes it was a bright magenta and green combination,
other times a quieter blue and white effects, and in one rather
spectacular moment, it came down in stripes of nearly a dozen
different colors.
The lighting was right, the crowd was in love, but the set-list
felt rough and the energy level coming off the stage was choppy.
The older material jumped out to grab me in ways that the newer
material couldn't and the transitions between songs were filled
with odd pauses and breaks in the momentum. Of course within all
of this there were several stand out moments. "Phenomenon," my
absolute favorite song on Show Your Bones, was incredible
live. Nick Zinner and Brian Chase seemed to be having an awfully
good time performing "Mysteries." And watching Karen O sing with
a sparkly scarf draped over her head for "mood" was equally enjoyable.
All in all I'm glad I went, but I'm still detecting a little
whiff of second album syndrome in the air. (No comments from the
peanut gallery.)
