It's hard to tell in the midst of an explosive musical movement who is going to make it past the scene and who is just making the scene. The first half of this decade was like that, when the term hipster got a refresh definition amid a melding of late-70's NYC punk/new wave and 1960's garage rock with whatever else had been worming its way through the collective conscious of the kids those days, just waiting to be spewed out in a flurry of vim and vigor as something that seemed altogether new enough to their young minds to be worthy of a zeitgeist. I love it when the kids do that.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, though emerging from a NYC scene that had hundreds of similarly minded bands, certainly seemed special from the start, not just because of Karen O’s ragingly powerful vocals and winking/sincere sense of show(wo)manship. Equal credit in this case goes (as it assuredly does not in every case) to guitarist/keyboardist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase, two instrumentalists who managed to meld virtuosity to some of the thoroughly modern sounds of the early aughts better than probably any others.After the breakthrough of Fever To Tell in 2003, the similar-sounding non-event of Show Your Bones (2006) felt like a sophomore slump (even though it’s still a very good record), and it seemed that YYYs might begin and end with their scene. But It’s Blitz this year marked an evolution, broke through the old-hat apathy (making many top ten lists of the year), and signaled that the band intend to become part of the new classic rock and not just a representative of a moment. That spirit and tenacity was evident at their recent Tokyo performance. 
Karen O took the stage in a red and white Dracula/Kabuki cape (?? I can’t pretend to know) that could have been cribbed from Freddy Mercury or the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Doffing that after the first song, Runaway, she revealed the shiny frilly multi-colored Muppet-looking outfit (aka, the ‘deconstructed prom dress’) that she inhabited the rest of the show. She’s still got the same energy she had in 2003, just trading some of the old enigmatic F.U. attitude for joie de vivre. She stalks the stage, spits water into the air, and just generally loses herself in trademarked Karen O dances and gyrations without a shred of self-consciousness. I suspect that she’s been able to keep this up so many years later because, unlike, say, Jack White, she is not and never was giving us shtick.Nick Zinner still sports the same Calvin-esque shock of black hair, and still looks kind of dreamy. And Brian Chase might just be the jazziest rock drummer playing in a major group today. He sits bolt upright, but creates pure groove magic with mere flicks of his wrists this way and that. One of the brilliances of YYYs is that he is given free compositional and improvisational reign, a la Mitch Mitchell in the Jimi Hendrix Experience, which is always a rare treat in a rock act with hits. 
(There was a fourth musician on keyboards and bass guitar to fill out their sound for the live act, but unfortunately I did not catch his name.)They selected roughly equally from their three albums, and although they didn’t play some of my favorites (Man, Fancy, and Hysteric), that mattered very little, as their catalogue is full of songs with the requisite energy and instrumental prowess to make a killer live show. Plus, Yeah Yeah Yeahs love being in their band, they love their band, and they love the people who come to see their band, and it absolutely shows. At one point Karen O simply shouted to the adoring crowd “Yeah Yeah Yeah!”, and this pretty well sums up their entire approach. Also, the three giant eyeball beach balls released during Zero toward the end were a great climax to the communal joy the band had been building the entire show. You’d have to be a real hipster douchebag not to grin a mile wide when you saw that. |
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report by kern and photos by saya38 |
 mag files : Yeah Yeah Yeah's
 Yeah Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah Yeah! (10/01/16 @ Shinagawa Stellar Ball) : review by kern, photos by saya38photo report (10/01/16 @ Shinagawa Stellar Ball) : photos by saya38漲っております！ (03/10/06 @ Shibuya AX) : report by mimiphoto report (03/10/06 @ Shibuya AX) : photos by saya38イカれた、イカした奴ら (03/10/02 @ Shinsaibashi Club Quattro) : report by shoko芸術は爆発だあぁぁっ！~絶叫炸裂、NYアート・パンク饗宴 (03/10/02 @ Shinsaibashi Club Quattro) : report by ikuyo |
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The official site Yeah Yeah Yeah's http://www.yeahyeahyeahs.com/ check 'em? -->MySpace / iTunes the latest album  "It's Blitz!" (国内盤 / US Import / iTunes / iTunes - Bonus Track Version) |
previous works
"Show Your Bones" (国内盤 / iTunes) "Fever to Tell " (国内盤 / US Import / iTunes) "Yeah Yeah Yeah's" (US Import) "Is Is - EP" (US Import / iTunes) "Yeah Yeah Yeahs: iTunes Session - EP" (iTunes) check the albums? |
the latest album "It's Blitz!" (国内盤 / US Import / iTunes / iTunes - Bonus Track Version) kern's works mail to  2010Yeah Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah Yeah! : Yeah Yeah Yeah's (16th Jan. @ Shinagawa Stellar Ball)2009Deerhoof, A Raw Force From Nature : Deerhoof (1st Feb. @ Liquidroom Ebisu)2008Sensational or Artistic: What Makes These Two So Special? : Rodrigo Y Gabriela (12th Nov. @ Shibuya AX)Why Don't You Come On Over, Z? : The Zutons (17th Oct. @ Shibuya O-East)2007overall view on Asagiri Jam (06th to 07th Oct. @ Asagiri Arena) |