Review: Caribou and Toro Y Moi at the Middle East
Click here for more Caribou photos from last week's show
All signs surrounding Caribou's sold-out Middle East gig hinted that
summer may finally be upon us: a humidity-free week that gave way to a
comfortable Thursday evening, a blissful opening set from Toro Y Moi,
and a back catalogue that exudes imagery of pleasant days ahead.
And
when Caribou kicked off their set with "Sundialing," it almost seemed
as if they were content with riding out the laidback vibe. That is,
until they stepped out of their warm-up and into "Leave House" from his
most recent album Swim. Quickly, it became clear where Dan
Snaith's head was at when forsaking his trademark dream pop overtones
in favor of an album's worth of material that aches to be given a run
on the dance floor. It was as if we'd all been suddenly transplanted
from Cambridge to the dankest, dingiest Euro club imaginable. Okay,
admittedly a gross overstatement, because the too-cool-to-move crowd
still took a while to come around to the pulsations emanating from the
stage.
Swim formed the focal point in their 75-minute set,
as Caribou cranked through all nine of the album's assaulting tracks
while sprinkling in a couple of choice cuts ("Melody Day", "After
Hours") from previous efforts. Snaith took on the role of jack-of-odd
trades, handling a synth setup, vocals, guitar, tambourine, cabasa, and
even a recorder he broke out for a solo during "Odessa". But any review
pertaining to Caribou's live performance would be remiss to mention the
drums -- lead drummer Brad Weber is an absolute machine. The show's
high points arrived during the middle of a few of the more rhythmic
numbers, when Snaith would crouch behind his own mini-kit and the two
would sync to create a percussive onslaught while the guitarist and
bassist built toward a reverberated peak before dropping back into the
chorus, baiting the crowd into a frenzy without fail.
Nowhere
near as raucous, but surprisingly pleasant nonetheless, was the
aforementioned blissful Toro Y Moi set. Mastermind Chazwick Bundick
hones a seriously soulful set of pipes and he lets them shine live. It
took a couple of songs for me to realize that the lush stylings coming from the slight man with the
coke-bottle glasses were not Auto-Tuned but in fact au naturel. Noteworthy as one of the more robust acts
under the ever-expanding chillwave umbrella, Bundick's newly conceived
live trio built upon his vocal centerpieces to deliver a refreshingly
bouncy opening set.
Quite the relief to see a chillwave act that's not afraid to pick up
real instruments and deliver a live show that wasn't just punching
buttons and whispering into a distorted microphone.
Never
one to leave the crowd cold, Caribou offered his own reminder that
summer is on the horizon, with set-closer "Sun" -- the only lyric being
the song title chanted at least 100 times over. But the nod was for
naught, as they built up and bottomed out the the song with a hammer,
informing the crowd that while we may be headed for sunnier days,
Snaith's quite content to wallow in the mire.