There's just no two ways about it: TV on the Radio is awesome. In time, their studio work - an organic, rhythmic mass of barbershop vocals, woozy melodies and perfectly textured production - will prove to be the missing link between the musical avant-garde and mainstream rock, which most certainly is a good thing. But their reputation as one of the best studio bands around has obscured the fact that they are as good - dare I say better - in a live setting than on record.
In October, about the same time their universally acclaimed "Return to Cookie Mountain" was being anointed Best Album of 2006 by everyone with a pen and thick-rimmed glasses, TVOTR damn-near set The Paradise on fire with one of the best performances I have ever seen.
Swaying and gliding across the stage like it was covered with ice, Tunde Adebimpe crooned, gestured and poured sweat with more energy than even the sold-out crowd could muster. David Andrew Sitek, who looks as menacing as his name sounds, prowled the stage smoking cigarettes and manipulating esoteric machinery into a sharp, imposing backdrop with which the fluid sounds of stoic guitarist Kyp Malone could collide.
It was dynamic and chaotic, but the band managed to harness the fury and turn it in to an organized set of flawless songs (and a three-song encore) that I will forever remember as a truly unique and incredible show.
All this by way of saying that for me, the bar was pretty high when they opened their spring tour in Providence on Thursday. I was realistic: I wasn't expecting anything as tremendous as the show I got mere months before, but knowing how much heat this band was capable of, I was expecting something a bit more exciting than what actually went down at Lupo's at the Strand.
They didn't deliver - at all. But to be fair, I wouldn't attribute this to the band's playing per se (before you ask - yes, I am aware how much like an apologist I sound). Adebimpe, Sitek and Malone were precise and tight, and the constant sheen of sweat on Adebimpe and Sitek's faces testified beyond a reasonable doubt how hard they were working. (Despite his wooly beard, Malone never ever sweats.) Their eagerness to get back on the road after a four-month touring hiatus was refreshing, and I really wish I could have reciprocated their energy.
With a set list like theirs though, it would have been impossible. How does a band follow up an inspired, frenzied show of activity and movement? There are several answers to this question, but among them is not, "With a suite of slow, psychological songs that are hard to dance to."
But that's what the crowded house got on Thursday night. One distinct memory I have from the October show was the perpetual motion of the audience. The music and performers were so energetic and animated that it would have required a deliberate and willful effort to resist being roused at that show. That vibe was glaringly absent in Providence, as the band eschewed many of its most up-tempo bangers for a confounding series of heady slow-burners.
After a galvanizing opening salvo of some of the band's best songs, including a smoking "Wolf Like Me" from "Cookie Mountain" and "The Wrong Way" from 2004's "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes," TVOTR completely deflated the atmosphere of any energy with the snail-paced, amorphous poetry of "Blind," a rarity from 2002's "Young Liars" EP. The song gets little love, and the skinhead with the tiny elastic hat standing in front of me was ecstatic for it to get un-shelved, but he was the only one. The collective feeling of the audience - still panting from the mosh-pit that surprisingly sprung up during "Wolf Like Me," and hungry to thrash around some more - was more or less "WTF?"
The band did little to recover the energy until the encore. Don't get me wrong: "Hours" and "Blues from Down Here" are good songs, and the band executed them with consummate skill, but they're kind of boring live. They're the type of songs best enjoyed as palette cleansers after energetic versions of better songs, like "I Was a Lover" or "Playhouses," two "Cookie Mountain" standouts that were notably absent from the set list. With its apocalyptic drums and breathy flutes, "Wash the Day" is a really cool song, but it's hard to pay attention to an eight-minute song when it is the fifth somber head-nodder in a row.
I've seen bands that I love play shows so bad as to make me like that band less. This wasn't that kind of show. On Thursday night, TVOTR displayed the musicianship, ambition, chemistry and passion that make them one of the most exciting things to happen to pop music in the last few years. Because I know that they are capable of the type of jaw-dropping, legend-making performances that their peers aren't, what disappointed me the most about TVOTR's tepid, B/B- performance was that this potentially epic live band became a group of ordinary live performers.
Mikey Goralink is a sophomore majoring in American studies. He can be reached at Michael.Goralnik@tufts.edu.
