Miike Snow & Jack Penate played Mercury Lounge, 9/15

Donning their signature white masks, Miike Snow came out swinging at a packed Mercury Lounge last night, 9/15. After opening with ‘Burial’, they tossed their masks aside and ripped into ‘Black & Blue’, a tune that, while still heavy on the electro, showed the bands strength at disco-soul.  The clear highlight was ‘Silvia‘, a song that begins with more focused vocals and structure and then morphs into a banging electro track with thick vocal effects and building beats. The furious finale of the song had Mark Ronson, who happened to be standing in front of me, bobbing his head in appreciation.  They closed with ‘In Search Of’, an electr0-groove that built layer-upon-layer up to a crescendo, then one band member at a time slowly left the stage and each layer was slowly peeled away until the stage was empty and the only sound was roaring applause.

Miike Snow – In Search Of

Jack Penate had the tough task of following Miike Snow and I was let down.  It was my first time seeing him and after hearing the songs from his new album, Everything is New, I had big expectations.  Unfortunately, it turns out that he’s a heart-throb (screaming girls at Mercury Lounge?) that plays straight-ahead pop-rock that lacks anything original or inventive live.  There’s work to be done in order to get the quality of the songs on the record to come across live on stage.

Since I name-dropped once already, I guess I’ll add that Adele was in the front row and actually sat on stage for Jack’s entire set.

Jack Penate

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