Review: TV on the Radio

Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio. Photos by Susan Pfannmuller

It’s an understatement to say there are few bands around like TV on the Radio, because the truth is there is none.  Yes, they make music that arouses some comparisons to other bands, but those similarities are vague and tend to create a false impression. 

Even stock labels tend to fail: Art-rock? Progressive indie-rock? Neither gets at the polyphonic sound this band, at its best, ultimately produces: an alchemy of a little bit of everything, with something conspicuous, like a trombone or a keening falsetto — or both -- involved a lot of the time. 

Saturday night, the band straight out of Brooklyn, N.Y., drew a crowd of more than 1,400 to Crossroads KC, the outdoor venue behind Grinders, and much of the crowd seemed wound up with anticipation as show time approached. It was the band’s third show here in more than four years, including a one-for-the-ages show at the VooDoo Lounge in March 2007.  This one wasn’t quite as transcendent as that show, but it was filled with excellent moments.

One of those moments was the opener, the throbbing and tense-but- ambient “Half Way Home” the opening track on the “Dear Science” album and a composition that, as much as any, showcases the band’s ability to shift moods, dynamics and styles dramatically and fluidly within a song.

TV is touring on “Nine Types of Light,” its fifth studio album which was released in April. It would play five tracks from that album, starting with “Caffeinated Consciousness,” another pastiche of sounds and styles -- funk, rock, blues, soul, pop – accented and embroidered with harmonies, percussion and electronic affects.  The band’s two vocalist, Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone, sing in contrasting styles – Malone can unleash a supernal falsetto; Adebimpe favors a deeper, more terrestrial style --which add to the changes in mood and resonance.

They also performed for the first time live, according to Adebimpe, “Second Song,” the opening track on “Light.” That would be the rare  static moment in a show that felt like it should have been longer – the setlist comprised 15 songs. The sound could have been cleaner, too. At times it was hard to pick out the discreet elements of a song, trombone included. (But after the Steely Dan show at Starlight, every show is going to sound inferior for a while.) The band’s stage presence is pretty much all-business and not much levity, though Adebimpe joked a bit as he made it clear he knew he was in Kansas City, Mo., not KCK. 

The heart of the show came right after “Second Song,” when the band launched into  four songs made for live performance, starting with the jittery-but-soulful “Red Dress,” then the enervated “Staring at the Sun.” From there, they dovetailed “Repetition,” one of the more energized tracks on “Light,” with their best-known song, “Wolf Like Me,” a speeding, careening excursion into jackhammer rock rhythms, urgent vocals and rubbery dance grooves – save for the dreamscape bridge. It set off a tide of dancing, bobbing and singing-along.

They would close with the clamorous “Dancing Choose,” a peppy, exclamatory blend of pop, rap and rock.  This is, above all, a demonstrative band, one that doesn’t dabble much in nuance.

In conversations I had during and after the show, lots of names were proposed as ways to get at the sound this band produces: Radiohead, Bad Brains, Fishbone, early Genesis, Jane’s Addiction, the Pixies … You get the picture. I’ll go with Radiohead, but only because like that revered band, TV on the Radio keeps experimenting and evolving and it sounds like no one else in particular. And vice-versa.

Setlist: Halfway Home; Dreams; Caffeinated Consciousness; Satellite; Will Do; Province; Young Liars; Second Song; Red Dress; Staring at the Sun; Repetition; Wolf Like Me; Forgotten; The Wrong Way; Dancing Choose.

Nic Offer of !!!. Photo by Sondra Freeman, friend of B2R.

!!! (Chk Chk Chk): The turnout was initialy light for the veteran Sacremento, Calif., band. But by midway through the band's 40-minute-plus set, about half of a late-arriving crowd was in place and indulging in its flamboyant blend of psychedelic punk-infused disco and dance-pop, despite the muddy sound mix.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[Professor]

No comments.....? I assume all who went to this show are speechless as well. To the mulletheads badmouthing indie rock and who said they were going to the Camaro Fest at Sprint: if we all approached music like you guys, we'd still be afraid to look at Elvis' gyrating hips on television.

I think it's pretty effin' cool that a pair of black guys can take white music(reappropriated black music) and distill it into yet another sound of their own and resell it to a largely white audience. Music: the universal language.

!!! got the party started right and TVOTR really brought it. I thought the first 5 or so songs carried a lot of momentum, with the back half of the show slacking a bit, but I'm nitpicking an otherwise fantastic show. Glad I went. The sound wasn't too bad over to the right of the sound booth.

[Richard]

Hmm I could have swore Satellite and Wrong Way were switched during the set?

Fantastic show all around. Dude from !!! gyrated right in front of me on the railing for like half the set. So fun.

Much better review than the ignorantly pretentious Pitch review. But your reviews are always better, anyway.

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