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Another sold-out Saturday night at the Showbox. Another amazing performance by another amazing band it’s taken us too long to see.
Indie-rock experimentalists, Blonde Redhead, really gave us a show we may never have seen before. Both visually and sonically stimulating, we walked away from the Showbox Saturday night feeling curiously mesmerized.
The girl, Kazu Makino, a blue sparrow with an eerie voice and twin brothers, Simone and Amedeo Pace -- all genuinely seemed to have a good time on stage. They smiled for us and for each other. They performed most of their phenomenal new album, "23" and they pleased those fans begging for earlier material.
During the set, we couldn’t take our eyes off the stage, with its backlit colors changing from blue to red to white, orange, purple and everything in between -- no spotlights. The effect seemed to wrap our performers in a psychedelic silhouette as the atmospheric music washed over us, cleansing and sharpening our senses.
Photo by pangpangdead on Flickr.
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I have somewhat lukewarm feelings about Blonde Redhead's performance. Did you notice how they barely even spoke to us or acknowledged we were there? I found myself thinking much more about the opening band, Annuals, as I left that night. The level of enthusiasm and gratitude they showed on stage totally blew me away. They just looked like the were having a ton of fun (which is more than I can say for Blonde Redhead).
Unfortunately, I missed the first half of their set, but I'll definitely concede that Annual's show was fun and enthusiastic. I loved the duel drum kits and all the on-stage energy. I was just more into Blonde Redhead that night.
Also, I think the appropriate level of banter from artist to audience is really relative to the nature of the music. In this case, I didn't think they were far off.
I won the ticket giveaway and had a great time! (Thanks Seattlest!)
Having been a fan of Blonde Redhead for 10 years, this was the first time I saw them live and must say they were beyond expectations. The mix of new and old material was perfect; matched by their appropriate blend of samples/triggers and straight up rock. They did seem to be having fun during "Bipolar" from "Fake Can Be Just As Good" with an apology from Kazu for "messing up".
Annuals left no major impact. I pretty much saw what I saw on the YouTube videos that were posted on this site last week.
This was a "darker" BRH show. I have seen them many times and since "MIsery" the band has had a dark vibe. Ive seen kazu wear sexy white numbers with her hair pulled back like an angel, ive seen them all laugh (and cry). This show had a dark vibe about it. I love them live and thought the show was mind blowing as usual. Only complaint is that the song set was not a varied as previous shows. Most of the time they have an increadlbly varied list, but Saturday at the Showbox was much more "23" centric.