Yeah New York

Yeah Yeah Yeahs; Oakley Hall
@Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY – February 25, 2006

When the indie rock scene was smoking hot at the turn of the century, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were considered the cream of the crop without really doing much. Along with the Strokes and the Mooney Suzuki, they represented New York’s presence in the scene, standing out with an art-rock edge, taking chances (rather than sticking to a repeated formula), and led by an ambitious, talented young woman who recalled the aura of New York’s great rock n roll dames before her. And all this happened before YYY put out their first full-length album. Once that full-length album dropped, the band faced the inevitable backlash from the picky critics but managed to pick up an unexpected surprise mainstream radio hit with “Maps”. Fast forward a couple years, and YYY is finally back, taking more chances, defying the odds, and doing it all in more ways than one. First, Karen O, Nick Zinner, Brian Chase, and a new keyboardist/guitarist decide to take the band’s sound in a new direction: a darker but smoother form of pop music one can move to, without sounding Goth or industrial. For the sake of comparison, I’ll throw Roxy Music out there, but I expect to be properly chastised for such a size-up. The next step: playing live with almost exclusive concentration on the new material. With the exception of “Art Star”, “Y Control”, the aforementioned “Maps”, the hidden track on Fever to Tell, and “Tick”, YYY played nearly 2 full hours of brand new music that sounded different from the work that made them a success, both critical and commercial (Well, “Maps” is sort of dark pop, but it’s not very danceable). But is this new stuff any good? The studio results remain to be seen but live wise, it’s fantastic. The band is entirely in synch, Karen O’s voice was perfect on this night, and the songs, both old and new, resonate with syncopated clarity. In a word…outstanding.



Openers Oakley Hall looked like the entire set-up for Lynyrd Skynyrd, and tried to sound more like Whiskeytown and My Morning Jacket and it just didn’t work. Snooze factor on 10.