...reviewing Yeah Yeah Yeahs @ Kool Haus

The band

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are part of the current American wave of art rock. In the UK this is represented by bands like Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and The Invisible. In the U.S. (where it used to be called "Vowel Rock", I'm not making this up) its leading lights are The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio, the last two who form a little bit of an artists commune amongst themselves (while Jack White is his own cottage industry. Did you know he's in every band going, and is at least two members in some of them? I read it on a blog.)

Listening to the first Yeah Yeah Yeahs album Fever to Tell reminded me so much of the energy that I felt when I was in New York and visited CBGB's (though I admit to passing up the opportunity to visit the bathroom). Lead singer Karen O came across as if Patty Smith and Chrissie Hynde had a little baby, and that baby was raised by Debbie Harry. The music was fierce, energetic, and Karen's vocals wavered between tender punk crooning (like on "Maps" or parts of "Pin") and ferocious yells ("Date with the Night" and other parts of "Pin") all against the stellar playing (and interplay) of guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase. Their second album, Show Your Bones, was the very definition of "difficult". It was difficult to make and difficult to listen to. It sounded almost joyless, and the tensions in the band were on full show in the music. It would not have been hard just listening to those two albums to see Karen O as a dark, almost intimidating figure on stage and in person and not the best way to spend an evening, like the standard stereotype of Hynde.

Their latest release It's Blitz is a glam-mier, more danceable collection. In a way, it's their Parallel Lines. This new life for the band has seen them appearing on more mainstream shows like Saturday Night Live, and that night I saw Karen O do something I didn't know she could do.

She smiled.

So she wasn't unapproachable, and actually did enjoy herself while performing. Also, I wouldn't be wondering if I was going to be judged "cool enough" to be at the show.

Alrighty then, on the list they go.

The show

They played the first of two shows in Toronto at the Kool Haus on August 4th. The opener was Amanda Blank. I only saw the last bit of her set, but she presented a great definition for the following: trying too hard, pandering, and demonstrating less lyrical depth than Lady Gaga. As she left the stage it hit me: she came across like a party-girl/hippity hop version of Ashley Tisdale. Or maybe I'm just not the target market

Yeah Yeah Yeahs took the stage and even though I was at a weird angle and couldn't see most of the band I knew I wasn't going to miss anything because you just knew Karen O was going to be the focus. And she was for the bulk of the set which was heavy with newer works and a couple of presents from the Master EP. Whether she was holding the microphone aloft like a cross between an Olympic torch and an aspergillum (See how nice I am to provide a definition?), covering herself in a muslin shawl, or crawling across the stage - she was the performance focus of the band. It was something trying to reconcile the image I had of her with the bouncing, jumping, happy person on stage, singing and performing her heart out.

The show isn't just the Karen O Dance Party. Zinner and Chase are phenomenal musicians in their own rights, and some performances were re-inventions of their songs. "Cheated Harts" morphed from a driving, steady song to a slow-burn-to-a-freakout, while "Maps" was became a combination campfire/country song being played on an acoustic guitar. This was quite remarkable because on Fever to Tell the song is a series of tom-toms and shrill guitar notes, the urgency of which provides a great contrast to Karen's more mellow singing style. The encore performance of "Art Core" which oscillated from noise punk to groovy surf rock like some kind of Raveonettes/Sonic Youth mash-up shows how the band could play on a dime, to coin a phrase, and just how much the group truly is greater than the sum of its parts.

What I took away from the show was something that I wish more bands and performers today knew: There is something to be gained from honing your craft, working at your art, and treating it as such. I never got the sense that they were happy with just being good and a fun night out. There was a sense that they were always going to challenge themselves to be something just a little more and that doing anything else would be betraying their talent. They don't rock hard because it's cool to rock hard the kids like it. They rock hard because they're damned good at it and they're going to keep getting better at it, because what's the point of going through what you've gone through unless you're going to keep improving?

This was one of the best shows I've been to this year, hands down.

The venue:

I've written about Kool Haus a couple of other times, so I'll just mention these two things:

1. The air conditioner was on finally. Thank the maker!
2. For the love of Clapton, close it down for two months if you have to and try to figure out a better way to get people OUT of there. Everyone is funneled through a set of doors on one side of the stage, and they have to avoid being pushed into the door frames or the one or two doors that are never opened. They then walk down a hallway and then into the courtyard...which is full of 102.1 The Edge interns throwing their boxes everywhere, and then a hot dog cart that everyone has to move around. Either open the back doors, or expand the main entrance. (Also, the interns who were saying that the promotional condoms that fell onto the ground and were trampled on were "still good": No, no no no no no, no, they are not." This is NOT a "close enough for rock and roll" thing.)

The crowd

The crowd was a mix of true believers and a few tourists, but at usual I have a message to someone special

*ahem*

Dear Prince of Douchynees,

I knew you were going to be special to me as soon as I saw that you had the collar of your shirt turned up.

I wanted to thank you each time you pushed by me to get a drink at the bar/shots for your friends (8 times in a 90 minute set) for not proving me wrong.

When you landed your 6 foot 5 frame and size 13 shoes on my thin Converse with full force and didn't even apologize, I knew you were truly one of God's great prototypes.

And the way you spent the entire show talking to your friends with your back to the stage; that was genius, because it showed you really didn't care that there were people who wanted to be as close to the stage as we were and actually, you know, see or hear the band. You are such a great fan that you don't even NEED to be there.

We obviously don't deserve you.

Smooches,

G Valentino