July 15th, 2011 1:00am
We Can’t All Have It
tUnE-yArDs @ Pier 54 Hudson River Park 7/14/2011
Do You Wanna Live? / Gangsta / Es-So / Powa / Fiya / Bizness / Real Live Flesh / Hatari / You Yes You / My Country // Killa (with fireworks display!)
In comparison to other tUnE-yArDs shows that I've seen, this show was a bit weak -- the audience wasn't as rowdy, the band was slightly out of practice, Merrill Garbus had a bit of trouble with her higher register -- but it was still a thrill. Garbus is so on point lately that an off night is still astonishing. She mentioned being a bit nervous about playing to such a large audience, but by the halfway point in this gig, you'd never know it. She's a natural for this sort of thing: wildly charismatic, huge voice, very theatrical. (This show ended with a fireworks display, which made perfect sense.) I've seen her perform enough times to recognize her tricks, and they work every time. I've had more fun seeing tUnE-yArDs in small venues, but it's becoming apparent that she's going to have to move up the bracket to the big rooms soon. I just hope the next time she plays NYC she books a better space than Terminal 5.
One Response.
7/31/11 8:20 pm
I saw this show and it was amazing from my vantage point. It was my first time, and if this is what a Merrill Garbus off night sounds like it, I’d love to see her at her best. She talked about “how cool the full moon is up there” a few too many times, which was funny — and she generally seemed like one of those people who, even if she makes a mistake or deals with technical looping difficulties, well—her personality makes it all so easy to forgive.
There seems to be a real movement afoot in Brooklyn with the Indie scene taking inspriation from World Music, for lack of a better term—along with tUnEyArDs and others, I saw a band in Brooklyn last week called the Gentleman Brawlers, checked them out and they’ve made a surprisingly fun disc—it grows on you like ivy on a Cobble Hill brownstone, kind of a fusion of American folk and Afro/Latin folk … merits continual spins in my estimation!