Whether it was a love for that José Gonzales cover, a need for a ticket stub of honor, or an all-out appreciation for the best electro-pop outfit in years, The Knife’s early show at Webster last night was the must-see on most hipster lists — and the block-long line for will-call (with the Cardigans in VIP!) had the shit-eating grins to prove it. The anticipation was palpabale and understandable; this was Karin and Olof’s first American show and only their twelfth overall. But it was our second Knife outing (the first was this summer in Norway), and expectedly less magical for it.
The setup was nearly the same: a scrim pulled before a spare stage, with the oh-so-mysterious siblings rocking a deep shade of Blue Man Group face paint and two instrument stations with jags and crosses of blacklight-reactive tape. One of many things that has kept The Knife from gracing these shores has been the prohibitive cost of transporting their equipment, but last night’s Webster set shows that their growing success has allowed them a decent touring budget. The stage had four huge puppet heads lined up left-to-right at rear stage, which had everything from blinking, three-eyed ghouls to normal human faces singing along to select songs. Sorta creepy, sorta cool.
With The Wall-at-your-local-planetarium type laser images projected on the scrim, and modern art styled animation clips racing across the back screen, the duo did their thing, dancing jerkily to crowd killers like “We Share Our Mother’s Health,” “Pass This On,” and “Silent Shout.” As for “Heartbeats,” it received a mild makeover, with Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” bass bongs and some altered arrangements — but ya can’t bury the melody, and ya can’t deny this is one of the great songs of this indie epoch.
At a Knife show, the backing music is entirely pre-recorded (Olof’s drumstick wielding is more choreography than actual drum pad pounding) but Karin’s vocals are live and spot-on; as hyped and attested to, they are primarily a “visual act,” but really, it’s all about the songs (which sounded amazing — Webster’s house system was made for this sort of pristine electro-rave goodness). And after this short sweep through the States, The Knife will either retire from live shows entirely (as they never planned on playing more than five), or entirely revamp their live shows. We’re hoping for the latter, ’cause records this good just sound better when you’re surrounded by a sea of sweaty bodies, ya know?
SETLIST
01. “Pass This On”
02. “The Captain”
03. “We Share Our Mother?s Health”
04. “You Make Me Like Charity”
05. “Marble House”
06. “Forest Families”
07. “Kino”
08. “Heartbeats”
09. “Silent Shout”
10. “From Off To On”
——————-
11. “Like a Pen”
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Ryan Adams and Bryan Adams have the same birthday -
5th November.
I like the Knife, me.
Ta ta,
David Bowie.
I’m not sure about the sea of sweaty bodies but I saw them in Paris a couple of weeks ago and they surely performed amazingly :)
I knew he wasn’t playing!
You know what makes me bitter? I ran into someone who could’ve given me a ticket at the Vice late nighter! Oh well, maybe next year when they come back. Apparently the lead singer is preggo.
I don’t agree with the sea of sweaty bodies either. Their music is not to dance to until you can’t move anymore but to f*cking travel with! I loved it.
Webster Hall for the first time, in my poor experience attending shows, had a great sound arrangement. Those sounds coming once in a while from the back were creepy. Awesome!
it was mad stuffy up front, yo. i perspired. and mad fucking good, everywhere. act of the year!
The band’s aesthetic is abominable, somewhere in between the teletubbies and a visualizer. dun-zo
“You Make Me Like Charity” made my face melt off….
no possible way the vocals were live
I walked out halfway though. I simply can’t believe people were so transfixed by that show (Oh my God! The face – that wasn’t even synched up with the music – turned into a skull!! Everybody freak out and cheer!!!). In my opinion the visuals were horrendous and detracted from the music, which didn’t translate nearly as well to the live setting as I would have hoped. Armed with an arppegiator and a harmonizer anyone can write a The Knife song in five minutes. I’d much rather listen to the album at home then see them pretend to play to music on stage while projecting images which look like they were drawn by a little kid using MS Paint. Seriously folks, the audio/visual marriage can yield some amazing results, but The Knife’s show made a mockery of that union. Just because they’ve only played a couple of shows ever doesn’t mean that you and your glow sticks have to flip shit over them.
That was one of the few things that were live.
Damn, I wish I had gotten to one of these shows! The new ablum is insanely catchy.
Scott: GO see SSM tonight, they are playing CMJ, and will rock your shit.
Great show, almost theater. Anyway, I think they didn;t play Marble House, at least at the early show they didn’t.
Yes the vocals are live
how come nobody was dancing?
The vocals were live, the music was not, and yes, they did play Marble House at the early show. It was the one with the projection of the Marble House on the back screen, and the “guest singer” to Olof’s right, ok…
I adore the Knife…I would’ve killed to see them!
Glad you enjoyed the show.
Karin’s voice is amazing…I’m glad she sings live. Her voice is one of the most magical things about them.
The Knife hit upon some fantastic melodies and in a studio turned them into a few great tracks. The rest of the new album is moody filler.
This show was so cheese-whiz you half-expected a 18-inch stonehenge to descend from the rafters. Applaud any outfit that offers and interesting take on the live presentation with a set of stunning visuals. Hell, for electronic bands who stand virtually still, it should nearly be a requirement.
Otherwise, it’s hard to believe so many did not feel ‘taken’ by this show. The music was mostly straight-up recording from the album, and the vocals were only semi-live (Karin’s vocals were there, but with a louder ‘safety’ recorded vocal layered beneath her live one).
It’s just a shame to see so many heads flip over this when there are artists with real talent doing live shows. I was down for checking out the spectacle of it all, but all The Knife has proven is that you can trick out sounds and visuals on PowerBooks, throw on some masks for pseudo-militant mystique, play coy with the press, and hipsters will throw money at you.
And this is not a crack on electronic acts. The music end of electronic has been delivered on stage miles better than this by acts who are more about thrilling the audience than catering to their own egos and bank accounts.
‘Heartbeats’ is still amazing. It’s just sad most of the rest is pretentious ca-ca.
The Knife went off at the El Rey in L.A!! You have to like the album in order to appreciate the stellar live show. I would also like to add Karin’s vocals were live.
Have to admit — It wasn’t as TRULY spectacular as everyone is making it seem. It was still fun though
Let’s just say, they aren’t giving Daft Punk a run for the money. Live-wise.
I do believe the Knife wrote Heartbeats, not Jose Gonzales (as alluded to in the first sentence of this article).