Karen O review – spellbinding intimacy and unbridled joy

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/05/karen-o-review-yeah-yeah-yeahs

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With the memory of the zombie-obsessed sludge-rock of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ last album, Mosquito, still fresh, it was a shock to hear Crush Songs, the solo debut from frontwoman Karen O. Recorded on what sounded like a cassette tape accidentally eaten by a vacuum cleaner and spat out again, it found her singing about her romantic entanglements over a rudimentary acoustic guitar. Tonight’s set replicates the album’s intimate feeling: basking under a heart shaped neon sign that says “Crush Palace”, Karen O is dressed in a shiny evening dress, suggesting full chanteuse mode.

Beginning gently enough on the long-distance blues of NYC Baby, with acoustic guitarists Moses Sumney and Holly Miranda providing bewitching minimal accompaniment, things take flight on Beast. A dark waltz on record, tonight it morphs into something truly unsettlingly: Karen O and Miranda deliver ghostly harmonising on the closing couplet – “Didn’t you ever have enough?” – calling to mind the creepy twins from The Shining.

Spellbinding though it might be, the first half suggests more restraint from the microphone-eating, pizza-dress-wearing chanteuse than we’re used to. There’s a sense of relief midway through the gig as she lapses into uncontrollable hysterics when a sound problem hits Other Side. You are reminded that her stage presence with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is one part aggression, one part unbridled joy.

The latter comes out when she pulls on a single sequined glove during the Michael Jackson tribute King, and it’s there again when she lets rip in the middle of Body, screaming her old familiar Yeah Yeah Yeahs roar and shaking the hell out of some sleigh bells. The crowd let out the biggest cheer of the evening. You can take the girl out of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs …