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Kicking off with “My
Dog Was Lost But Now He’s Found,” the band ran
through the set with even more ADD-fueled abandon than they
have on record, and yet never seemed to lose a step.
On their brand-new Blueberry Boat, thirteen tracks
are assembled from over four dozen song fragments that occasionally
seem forced together like jigsaw puzzle pieces that weren’t
meant to connect, but once it’s put together, the overall
picture is still worth several thousand words. On stage, however,
the Furnaces disconnect the pieces and reconstruct their baby
Frankensteins with rusty scalpels and duct tape; the first
few minutes of “Quay Cur,” parts of “Chris
Michaels,” a short ride through the robotic hip-hop
fun house/feminist pirate chantey of “Blueberry Boat,”
a subdued version of the sublime “Tropical Ice-Land,”
and we now return for the conclusion of “Quay Cur,”
and the set’s only half over. All the while, circusy
organs mix with White Stripes country punk guitars mix with
Eleanor Friedberger’s playful sing-speak mix with a
drummer semi-possessed by Keith Moon and the GWAR-loving dude
from Empire Records.
My only disappointment of the day followed
the Furnaces, during The Thermals’ set on the main stage.
I had been waiting over a year to see these Portland, Oregon
Sub-Poppers, one of the few living, thriving pop-punkish bands
not named Green Day or NOFX that shouldn’t be ashamed
of themselves. Problem was, their self-described “no-fi
glory” had all the crunch of a soggy waffle, drowned
in Kathy Foster’s distractingly feedbacking bass. Not
that Kathy isn’t a solid bassist; she’s solid
and spunky to boot. But someone behind the boards should have
realized that Hutch Harris’ guitar and Jordan Hudson’s
drums needed a crank from 6 to 11, and that Kathy’s
bass should have been at 8 instead of 12. Though before I
decided “Fuck this soupy mix, I’m getting some
fried chicken before TV on the Radio,” I got to sort
of hear “No Culture Icons” and a few tracks from
their explosive new record Fuckin A, and The Thermals
at least looked like they rocked pretty hard.
I was concerned that poor sound would also dampen my second
TV on the Radio live experience, as it did at their record
release party last March. But despite sluggish opening and
closing numbers, the band proved they could be as captivating
live as they are on record. Their versions of “Staring
at the Sun,” “The Wrong Way” and “Satellite”
were pumped with added shots of adrenaline, as Jaleel Bunton’s
drums equaled the pulsating tension of the band’s recorded
loops, and David Andrew Sitek’s electric guitar nailed
TVotR’s trademark black and white noise.
Finally, Mission of Burma brought the
show to an anthemic close, for me at least. (Nothing too personal
against co-headliners Death Cab for Cutie and Trail of Dead,
but Coney Island sidewalk & subway traffic at the end
of Siren day is a hideous bitch goddess.)
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