Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Live!
Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Written by Ansy Savitri. Photographs by Didi Kurniawan.
Everyone who watched the Yeah Yeah Yeahs live caught a Fever To Tell on that magnificent night on 12th January 2010. It was a phenomenal night when New York’s most exciting band rocked the Esplanade concert hall, sending every little people in it into hysterics.
A cinematic melodrama unfolds with ‘Runaway’, sending the crowd into frenzy followed by ‘Pin’ and ‘Phenomena’. The show accelerated with sexy ‘Black Tongue’ and a luscious ‘Dull Life’, leading them ‘Miles Away’ to a frenetic height. They reveled in disco with ‘Zero’ and ‘Heads Will Roll’ before descending into the ethereal with ‘Hysteric’ and ‘Skeletons’. With Ms. Karen O as your tour guide – clad with an Indian headpiece - you might just end up flying through Pandora. Clappers clapped to ‘Gold Lion’. Karen O got the lucky twerps at the front row to join her on vocals for ‘Cheated Hearts’. The first lineup ended with ‘Y Control’, truly an epic masterpiece. The crowd cheered for encore when the band left the stage for 10 minutes.
They came back to give a gorgeous acoustic rendition of ‘Maps’ – the highlight of the night – seducing the crowd with a line like “They don’t love you like I love you.” ‘Turn into’ turned the vibe up as ‘Date With the Night’ kicked in as the climax, forcing the word “choke” out of you while banging your head so hard you couldn’t remember anything except how the trio’s music makes you feel like flying through the night sky.
Drummer Brian Chase’s cymbal showering soared. Nick Zinner stalked the corner of the stage looking cool, and of course, Karen O -I don’t even know how to describe this amazing lady- she is soulful and insane at the same time. Her antics — doing her spit-water act, microphone swallowing, and answering shouts whenever someone screams out “I love you, Karen O!”– left the crowd in awe. Thank god for Christian Joy for her quirky costumes & headpieces. There’s a particular energy that she transferred to the audience. All hail the rock goddess. She is larger than sound.
It was an absolutely mind-blowing gig, truly one of the best of the year -and quite possibly-, in my life.
Setlist:
1. Runaway
2. Phenomena
3. Pin
4. Black Tongue
5. Dull Life
6. Zero
7. Miles Away
8. Heads Will Roll
9. Skeletons
10. Hysteric
11. Gold Lion
12. Cheated Hearts
13. Y Control
Encore:
14. Maps (Acoustic)
15. Turn Into
16. Date With The Night
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