TV On The Radio: Uplifting Serious

Here's the thing about TV On The Radio- they are in equal measure serious, musical, complex, obscure and at their show you can chuck that all out the window and dance. That's actually not accurate: the layered harmonies, heavy percussion and tempo changes are the main reason you want to move so hard. It's not an ironic self-awareness like Beck or a conscious push towards dancing fun like the Go Team, TVOTR bless the show with a hypnotic sway- vocalist Tunde Adebimpe jitterbugging, hands fluttering, guest instrumentalist Stuart Bogie jumping up and down and the all-ages crowd at First Ave Tuesday night spinning all over like a weighted top. Adebimpe told the crowd after "Dirtywhirl," "Thanks for dancing- that's encouraging for the future of the world." The amount of sheer danceability almost problematizes how serious TVOTR as a band, and how far they push themselves and their audiences.

As Adebimpe whipped up a frenzy, guitarist/producers Kyp Malone and David Andrew Sitek held the heavy end down, pushing layered drones and sirens while Jaleel Bunton on drums and Gerard Smith on keys kept the foundations shifting forward. Material from the brand-spanking new Dear Science was played close enough to the record so as to ensure recognition, and the crowd perked up to the almost Prince-inflected (and subject of absurd but serious but mythic but kitch video) "Golden Age" and the upbeat but dark "Crying" that Adebimpe attacked like a modern "Subterranean Homesick Blues" - and Malone with his Ginsburgian beard fit right in.

Sounds, Setlists & Side Projects after the jump!

It was the re-imagining of tracks from 2006's smash Return to Cookie Mountain that was revelatory of the adventurous spirit. This was a disc that started off with the lyric "I was a lover before this war," a definitive statement grounded in the times but expansive. As Malone noted before "Blues From Down Here," "I wrote a song in the past about now." The re-orchestrations distilled the best parts of that heavily layered disc; Adebimpe's bass vox, Malone's high tenor, a riff and hook and then all else exploded with new possibility. "Wolf Like Me" became a a series of layered tonalities over which Adebimpe roared, "A Method" was totally stripped down to an organ melody and a clatter, with as many shakers, blocks, and tambourines the band could get their hands on. They even had openers The Dirtbombs come back out to give them a hand.

Detroit's The Dirtbombs were a revelation in their own right. A long standing band, laboring for years in rock and roll obscurity, you could trace lineage far-flung from garage punk to Bootsy Collins in their sound. They drove it hard, as a band from the Motor City should. Frontman Mick Collins and guitar/vox Ko Mellina had a great Frank Black/Kim Deal exchange going on, and Collins would on occasion break apart a song with noises from his guitar that would make it seem as though an electrical current was passing directly through him. That's no bad thing, and they were heartily endorsed several times by TVOTR from stage - "Now you know," Malone remarked. It's not in the darkness or dourness that something becomes serious or important, but in the care, the sharing, and the pleasure separating itself out from pain.

Setlist
Young Liars
Wrong Way
Golden Age
Crying
Halfway Home
Wolf Like Me
Dirtywhirl
Stork & Owl
Shout Me Out
Dancing Choose
Blues From Down Here
Satellite

Encore
Family Tree
A Method
Let The Devil In
Staring

Check out: TVOTR as Photo of the Week at www.HowWasTheShow.com

Also: Kyp Malone announces new releases with side project Iran. [Via Pitchfork]

And: Kyp Malone engages in some songwriting/free associative beat poetry/dressing down of hecklers at Cake Shop in 2007.