Atoms for Peace and Flying Lotus played Roseland (night 1)
The line in front of Roseland Ballroom stretched around the corner of 52nd Street and up Broadway but moved along quickly. The band’s ticketless method to limit scalping seemed to work without too many headaches. Flying Lotus was on the wheels when I walked in spinning chilled-out techno but it’s tough to build a groove when the sound system is popping and cracking like a blown speaker, what a shame. Sound improved toward the end of his set and he closed with ‘Idioteque’.
Atoms for Peace took the stage as a 6-piece with Thom Yorke at piano and a guest horn player center stage (he would depart after 2 songs). They opened with ‘The Eraser’ and two things became immediately clear: 1) the sound was now perfect and 2) Flea would add some SoCal funk/punk to the set. With blue hair and a white tee (the rest of the band was in black), he was immediately wiggling/dancing across the stage laying it on thick. The set was comprised mostly of songs from The Eraser but included some Radiohead and some new songs as well. The clear highlight was ‘And it Rained All Night’ followed by ‘Harrowdown Hill’ which included a big metallic bass line from Flea that had my crew dancing up a sweat. This band is incredibly tight and the varied break-beat percussion steered them through their varied sounds: tribal, experimental, electro, rock, drum-n-bass, minimalist and Middle Eastern.
After about 55 minutes, the band took a quick break and Thom came back out solo to debut a new, as yet untitled song on guitar, that sounded like it was still in development. Still solo, he sat at the piano to play a rollicking ‘Daily Mail’ followed by ‘Everything in its Right Place’. The band returned for four more, the first of which, ‘Paperbag Writer’ was a trippy electro-tribal stunner with Thom in full-on dance-mode. Though I wish it would have gone on longer, the show was incredible. This band is on a whole different level than 99% of what’s out there. If you’re planning to see a show on this tour, be very excited. If not, change your plans and find a ticket.
FYI: Doors were at 6, Flying Lotus 8 – 8:40, Atoms for Peace 9:10 – 10:40. I’ll try to add some video tomorrow.
UPDATE: Setlist after the jump…
Shout to BrooklynVegan for this:
Atoms for Peace (Thom Yorke) @ Roseland Ballroom, NYC – 4/5/2010 setlist
01. The Eraser
02. Analyse
03. The Clock
04. Black Swan
05. Skip Divided
06. Atoms For Peace
07. And It Rained All Night
08. Harrowdown Hill
09. Cymbal Rush
Encore 1
(thom solo)
10. Chris Hodge/Let Me Take Control (NEW SONG)
11. The Daily Mail
12. Everything In It’s Right Place
(full band)
13. Paperbag Writer
14. Judge, Jury & Executioner
15. Hollow Earth
16. Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses
Yeah, Rap-skallion!
your blackness,
strong review. would love some video.
sincerely,
a-dolphus
A-dolphus – I fucked up the video I took and can’t post it. There’s plenty out on the webs but I found one dude who did a medley of different parts of the show, not the best quality but a descent perspective that let’s you kind of see the whole stage at some good parts.
http://vimeo.com/10734120
Skip the whole first minute of crowd cheering, not sure why he kept that in, and if you get bored, skip ahead to these parts:
3:43 – Check out some of “The Clock” and despite the quality of the vid, Flea’s bass line and dance moves shine thru.
8:20 – Flea jumps on Melodica and Tom goes Egyptian for “Skip Divided”.
9:27 – Sound is awful but “And it Rain All Night” is worth checking out.
BV’s got some stuff up too I believe, at least on one of his many posts. I think Stereogum and Pitchfork does too.