While I'm not so informed and hip to be able to proclaim that I was a fan of TV on the Radio before they got big, I really wish I was. Nevertheless, they've been a big part of making me look cool via showing off my bloated and pretentious music library for quite a few moons. So it comes as a slightly embarrassing that I had never etched out a date in my calender to see them live before. Rest assured, the moment I learned TVOTR was hitting Vancouver, I was instantly committed to the event.
TVOTR noticeably and immediately benefits from a charismatic crew and especially exuberant front man, Tunde Adebimpe. They stand in stark contrast to the opening act, whose name I can't remember, nor would I particularly care to, who perhaps held the dogmatic tenants of hipsterdom a little too close to heart, and refused to partake in any but the most anemic movement. How ironic. Adebimpe enthusiastically paraded from one end of the stage to the other, sometimes perilously close to the edge considering how chaotically he flailed his arms and legs. There's certainly something to be said for showman ship, and TVOTR says it. On a similar note, I was quite pleased with the set list the band arranged. They opened with my favourite track in their collection, “Halfway Home”. Although some of the subtleties and nuances of the track were partly lost in translation to the stage, it was still pretty thrilling. Other highlights included “Wolf Like Me”, “Staring at the Sun”, and “Dancing Choose”. Work from their four most recent albums was well represented and overall the choices the group made seemed to be the correct ones, at least by my discriminating standards. However there were a couple of omissions that seemed erroneous. I think that “Second Song” is easily the best of the bunch from the new album, Nine Types of Light, yet it was no where to be found- or heard. Furthermore, while not necessarily my favourite, the still excellent track from Dear Science, “DLZ” is held in very high regard by many TVOTR fans. Some even go so far as to describe it as their magnum opus, yet it was not played either.
One of the high lights of the show had to be David Andrew Sitek on the guitar. That man is a monster when you put a guitar in his hands. He displays a confluence of staggering technical prowesses with a feral viciousness. His hands literally moved faster than my human eye could track, by quite a margin. It was just a strobing flesh coloured blur. Beyond that, the man was dealing with a dozen separate pedals in which to alter and modify his sound. How one musters such coordination-via his feet no less!- well, it's was an impressive display. His contributions drastically altered the arrangements and flow to many tracks, usually for the better, giving songs like “Will Do” a meatier and more visceral hook. “Blues From Down There” took on a whole other life. It's slow burn intensity on the album version was supplanted by dizzyingly elaborate and much more ferociously paced hooks and rhythms- probably the best part of the show. The caveat to Sitek and his daunting and wild guitar was that on more than one occasion he simply overpowered every other aspect of the group. Percussion, vocals, horns were simply drowned out in some kind of sonic tsunami.
This issue was amplified- trying to choose my words carefully and topically here- by a less than ideal, and quite frankly poorly conceived speaker set up. There was one single behemoth of a speaker feeding from Sitek's guitar placed just off center stage, no doubt part of why it sounded so overbearing. More concerning were the dual pillars of speakers on each side of the stage- the bulk of their audio set up- were tilted inwards towards the stage. The resulting effect, or perhaps lack thereof, was most of the vocal audio was directed not towards the audience, but fed back into the center of the stage where the band resided. Effectively discerning the lyrics in any kind of tangible or meaningful way was a matter of forced effort or pure luck. Not exactly stellar, considering the intricacies and depth of TVOTR's lyrics. The fact that this happened at the Commodore is even more perplexing and distressing. I've been to the venue many times and the sound has always been superior, and more importantly, balanced. The last show I saw there was Crystal Castles, a group who's sound is so sonically diverse and erratically arranged that effectively balancing and mixing all the disparate elements is quite a challenge. But the room and speaker set up in that case proved able to meet that challenge. Why TVOTR's comparatively more simplistic and benin sound proved so insurmountable a task is beyond me. Surely such an established group could afford more speakers?
The problem didn't ruin the show, but it kept it from being elevated up there with LCD Soundsystem, Crystal Castles, and Sleigh Bells as the more inspiring and memorable shows of the year. There was still enough positive and exciting moments to ensure fond memories of the performance; even if, like the sound, they are a little fuzzy.
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