TV on the Radio @ Metro Theatre, Sydney

After years of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I finally got to see TV on the Radio last night as they played their Big Day Out sideshow at a very, very sold out Metro. I’d heard they were great live and, luckily, they totally lived up to the hype. The energy exuded by this band on stage is incredible: Dave Sitek’s right hand moves as fast as a hummingbird’s wing, Tunde Adebimpe’s shirt was, literally, entirely soaked in sweat, and Kyp Malone’s beard was awesome times a million. In addition, a pair of saxophonists accompanied the band for much of the gig and they added a lot of punch and low-end to many of the songs.

Once TV on the Radio took to the stage they opened with Young Liars. It was an unexpected but totally great way to start the show. In fact, two other older songs immediately followed it (The Wrong Way, Dreams) which was rather refreshing. Most bands trot out that amazing opening track from their new record to kick off a show which often works but is terribly predictable (in fact, TVOTR didn’t even play their amazing opening track off Dear Science, which was the only let down of the night). I think this band showed a lot of respect for their audience by kicking things off with some older material.

The new stuff did come though. Through the course of the set the band played most of last year’s stellar Dear Science. Red Dress and DLZ, which came back to back toward the end of the set, were my favourites. For relatively new songs, the crowd was totally into them, belting out the words and backing vocals as if the songs were old classics.

While the new material works great live, Wolf Like Me had to be my highlight of the night. Having not seen the band before, I was waiting for this one and I didn’t have to wait long. Tunde’s powerful and passionate singing was evident all night but he really gave Wolf Like Me his all. Gesturing to the crowd, howling, and prowling the stage, he was completely magnetic and the song’s finale was an incredible release.

The band returned for an encore which, somewhat surprisingly, included a couple tracks from Return To Cookie Mountain, Blues From Down Here and Let The Devil In (the latter included some sweet extra drumming from Sitek). The final song of the night had to be Staring At The Sun. In its live incarnation the song is more guitar-heavy (actually true of many of the songs) but equally impressive. Tunde’s vocal was, again, totally insane.

Just another stellar January gig in Sydney. We are pretty lucky people.

Setlist:
Young Liars
The Wrong Way
Dreams
Crying
Golden Age
Wolf Like Me
Dirtywhirl
Stork & Owl
Shout Me Out
Dancing Choose
Red Dress
DLZ
Satellite
———
Love Dog
Blues From Down Here
Let The Devil In
Staring At The Sun

A few photos from the gig here. How cool was the drummer’s shirt?

The only letdown of the night (other than no Halfway Home) was the sound. Normally the sound at the Metro is great but tonight it seemed pretty muddy and both Kyp and Tunde’s vocals were way too low in the mix. Meanwhile, Dave Sitek’s guitar sounded like a rocket launch. Was it just me?

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 25th, 2009 at 10:08 am and is filed under General, Photos, Reviews, Setlists, Shows, Sydney. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.