[phlipcam video] Miike Snow @ House of Blues

Trying to gain entrance to Sunday night's MIIKE SNOW show at the House of Blues was sort of tantamount to trying sneak across the Mexican border with a bag of smack in each pocket. A little before 9 pm they had a line of people waiting outside that stretched down Lansdowne Street, from the club's doors to just about to the corner of Brookline Avenue. Along said line were four or five checkpoints at which they held us for an arbitrary amount of time, during which we all become collectively more agitated, before making us prove we weren't trying to firebomb the House of Blues or sneak in booze or whatever. It was sort of, really intense. And intensely frustrating as we could all hear the muffled notes of opener Penguin Prison's "Don't Fuck with My Money" come to a close from inside while the HoB task force cavity searched our belongings. If I'd had those drugs on me, they'd have found them.   

I'm guessing the reason for all the police state-like security was that this show was sold the eff out. Quite possibly over-sold out. So sold out that the people -- like myself-- unlucky enough to be stuck in the music venue purgatory that is the mezzanine [unless you're three-feet-tall or ten-feet-tall you're not seeing anything but the back of other's people's heads up there] were literally trying to bribe/sweet talk/menace the bouncers into letting them downstairs to floor level. Mostly to no avail. [Pro tip: there is a bouncer, who will remain unidentified, who will lead you downstairs, past other dissenting bouncers, like some sort of fairy godperson of obstructed viewing if you plead your case convincingly enough. I didn't. I instead pretended to be with a couple who actually did plead convincingly enough and followed them creepily downstairs as they followed the bouncer. Gotta do what you gotta do.]

Having finally made it down to the floor level, only three beers and a lot of fruitless bartering with bouncers later, I could finally see what all the fuss was about. Miike Snow had the stage set up like some sort of futuristic mainframe with Swedish production team Bloodshy & Avant a/k/a Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg lording atop a hub of blinking lights and production equipment that looked like a spaceship from the planet Hipstergon whose main export is slick electro-beats and frenetic dance party loops. They come in peace.

Frontman Andrew Wyatt [nee member of Brooklyn's The A.M.], by comparison, was firmly rooted on Earth, shambling across the stage in front of the production hub, his long, lanky limbs jerking around in time to the beat. He's an odd-looking dude, but wears his awkwardness well, slipping languidly into the crowd, almost as an after-thought, to crowd surf for moment before climbing back onstage, long hair flying.

Song melted into song, as Miike Snow tend to stretch their tracks out by three or four minutes, ending each track in a dizzying crescendo of flashing lights and pulsing dancehall beats that whip the crowd into a fervor before reigning them back in. It's effective, and it's damn fun, engaging the whole crowd in a collective mass of flying limbs and wagging heads. Damn fun at least for everyone but one young girl who must have somehow slipped her own stash past the gauntlet of security outside. "I hate you!" she slurred at her boyfriend as a bouncer dragged her from the crowd after she windmilled into a velvet-roped barrier taking both it and her put-upon looking boyfriend down with her. I didn't get the feeling it was really his fault but, hey.

The band came back for two encores, the last of which was that brainworm of a single. I think you know the one.