Date: May 19th, 2011
Venue: First Avenue
I arrived to a half full main-room filled with many groups of teenagers, a surprising number or which were boys. The first band, Princeton, had an early start time of 6:20 and I came in as they finished their set.
Neon Indian’s front-man Alan Palomo came onto stage and began the set air humping rhythmically to the samples leading into their first song. The generally pink or orange fog captured the 80s vibe of the album and the set was almost a dance warm-up for the rest of the show.
As compared with their album, Psychic Chasms, their live music is louder and more distinguishable than many recorded tracks where Alan’s voice out-weighs the synthesizers and keyboards.
It was a little disappointing that Alan appeared to have played less than a minute of theremin in the whole set. I had my hopes up from our experience with Neon Indian at Pitchfork last summer, where there was a wonderful amount of theremin in the set that also lead up to Sleigh Bells.
The crowd’s age was emphasized by the number of people singing and dancing to Justin Timberlake’s ‘Sexy Back,’ which I was surprised to even be hearing during the intermission.
I had listened to a little CSS (Cansei De Ser Sexy, Portuguese for “got tired of being sexy” ) and was surprised by the instant stage presence and energy of the band. Lovefoxxx (leadsinger) and the drummer had their faces painted in Dia de Los Muertos make-up.
Lovefoxxx danced vigorously, even provocatively and wore at least 5 outfits while on stage. Leather jacket with black capris, high waisted jean shorts with fishnets and short red sweater, sweater removed and short blue t-shirt, red t-shirt saying TRASH, and finally pink bridesmaid dress over the shorts that worked it’s way off as she danced for the last few songs.
The set included the appearance of a keytar and ended with ‘Let’s make Love and Listen to Death from Above’ where Lovefoxxx crowd surfed. I managed to touch her and a guy next to me held a patch of her fishnets, as I am sure many other people did.
The energy of CSS was enough to head-line a show and got the crowd pumped up for Sleigh Bells. Three large banks of lights blasted the stage with color as leadsinger Alexis Krauss thrashed to the guitar of Derek Miller, and the crowd surged frantically.
This was my third time seeing Sleigh Bells live. I’d seen them first a year ago opening for Yeasayer on the same stage. The crowd was equally packed then, but not nearly as young and excited. Second was at Pitchfork Fest last summer in 90+ degree weather to another equally packed crowd that transitioned quickly from the rhythmic dancing of Neon Indian to the thrashing waves of Sleigh Bells.
The combination of the Sleigh Bells crowd and an indoor venue with a wall of amps and lights made for a better light show, more stage presence, and all around the best Sleigh Bells set I have seen yet.
I lasted about 3 songs in the wave of bodies and worked my to the side bar. The set was 6 songs and the encore 3. They played a new song ‘Holly,’ which will likely be on the upcoming album the band told Rolling Stone they plan to record this summer and release early next year.
After Neon Indian and CSS the mer 40 min set of Sleigh Bells seemed to bring the night to an end too early.
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