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Live Review
by SashaS
10-6-2004
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| TV ón the Radio: Afro has its own life |
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Live: TV on the Radio
Bush Hall, London
Wednesday, June 9, 2004
TV on the Radio: not your ordinary boys
TV ON THE RADIO – name on every buzz-lip in London town for the past few months. Forget Franz Ferdinand and Keane and whoever is this week’s hype – TV on the Radio is the ticket to goodness-gracious-me land! The best way to check out a new band – and this one is certainly new, the rhythm section only joined in Nov. 2003 when the founding two turned into an actual band – is to see them in a quick succession.
They are overworked but their adrenalin overwhelms fatigue, songs are still new and developing with every gig and they become even tighter as a unit after each show. And within seven days – first experiencing them at the Monarch on the 2nd inst – things have shifted slightly. The Monarch’s show was rockier, louder and wackier even while tonight they display more restraint, more control and power without going OTT.
On both occasions the songs were stripped off of electronica and the horns of the recorded versions, still sounding mighty but with more air, more spaces, less hurried and intimidating. ‘Dreams’ is an early favourite that simply blows your mind with its harmonic refrain of “…Lost dreams”. Look at the News programme and turn into a new superhero – Paranoidman!
The current single, ‘Starring At The Sun’ is an ascending song that takes you to another melodic peak. There is ‘King Eternal’ then and the superlative ‘Ambulance’… ‘Ambulance’ is the showcase for human-beatbox skillz of David Sitek, the band’s producer also; otherwise the guitarist is standing discreetly in the background, bassist Gerard Smith is facing the stage-rear…
That’s the state of their visual extent and, actually, here is less a show and more being a spectacle themselves: horn-rimmed glasses [three on display but singer Tunde Adebimpe’s pair appears to have an image-function], Afros [a couple, provisionally, but guitarist Kyp Malone’s volume has it covered for the rest of them!], headgear and dressed down to Salvation Army chic.
Musically, it is a kind of Wall-of-Sound that just surges towards you and invades your senses, soul, existence… This band seems to soar untouchably over the competitors’ offerings with a mesmerising mix: at one moment it is a mash of Gang of Four, Prince and psychedelia, then it is rap with doo-wop vocalising [Malone’s an incredible harmoniser!], then a sonic explosion that points towards the future via a yellow-brick highway!
Thus, on 2nd enjoyment – priceless and appearing to be even more precious than we originally suspected. Art-rock? Nope, music-as-art, again. The future beckons bravely…
SashaS
21-9-2004
TV on the Radio’s album ‘Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes’ is available now on 4AD
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