TV on the Radio and Lissy Trullie

NOTICE:

I have just been informed that at the show, TV on the Radio was not playing with Gerard Smith, they had a stand in for the last few shows, as he was battling lung cancer and just recently passed away. You can read more information on this Here

So yesterday, on a whim, I went to the TV on the Radio show and I still feel pumped with it fresh in my mind. So I figured I should just get off my lazy ass and write my review. Firstly, I feel that I should mention that before seeing them, this was not a band I was super into nor did I really know anything about them aside from the fact that I had heard and enjoyed a couple of their songs here and there. It was really a random decision to go, my friend Mike (from Relic) was going and asked if I wanted to come, I said sure and bought my ticket like a week before the show, and his sister decided last minute to come with us as well. For some reason we decided to get to the venue early, and hang around with a super empty floor, which was actually a pretty good blessing, because throughout the show we were dead center, right at the fence.

Lissy Trullie

This was an interesting band; they were alright though not entirely my preferred style of music. They were very much an indie rock band and you could see the influences of a whole bunch of different bands (mainly 80s style) here and there, such as The Church (from the Donnie Darko soundtrack), and The Smiths (especially in the use of guitar effects & noises). While they did not hold my attention 100%, their upbeat songs were undeniably catchy and much better than their slower, more melodramatic songs. This group of four from New York were not too shabby, though Lissy, the frontman singer guitarist, was obviously nervous and should have slowed down her talking a bit; I had to search Google to find out what the band name was, as she said it once, very quietly and quickly. I don’t know how far they’ll make it, but if you’re into a lot of indie rock (I’m super picky about it) you should definitely give them a listen. (Though after listening to their recorded tracks, their live shows are much better and differentiate a fair amount in the use of tones, effects etc).

TV on the Radio

These guys really blew my mind. Being dead center was glorious for these guys because the crowd was not too rough (I’m used to the metal crowds), so I didn’t have to hold myself back from the bouncing crowd too much, though my back is sore from a shorter girl constantly punching my back when jumping around during the second half of the show. They opened their set with “Young Liars,” a good track to start with, as it builds up and starts to bring the audience into the groove.

They played through a relatively short set, most likely due to the fact that the singer, Tunde Adebimpe, mentioned that his voice was “broken” (most likely sick). Regardless of that, one could not tell that he was sick or had a broken voice (as far as I could tell, no real screw-ups), because the entire night went off without a hitch, leaving the crowd more than pleased, but not overly tired (they ended a bit before 11:00). They played for a little under an hour and a half, playing four tracks from their new album “Nine Types of Light” which was released April 12th 2011. The two guitarists: Kyp Malone and Dave Sitek, along with Tunde, kept the crowd full of energy throughout, with such great stage presence that I have only otherwise seen with The Mars Volta, with Tunde dancing around the stage, Kyp hopping all around and Dave all over the place, sometimes with a wind-chime attached to the head of his guitar (which I have not seen before). Another noteworthy member is Gerard for his catchy-as-all-hell bass lines, keeping everything groovy and funky, once in a while putting his bass down to play some keys (though Sitek at times would be playing 2-3 instruments at once; bells, guitar and keys). There was no real crowd/band interaction, but that was fine, because when a band gets the crowd moving around this much there’s no real need for that, aside from the obligatory compliments to our wonderful city of course. To any of you interested, the set was:

I managed to grab a set list after the show, as did Mike.

I’ve been listening to their tracks all day today and they have songs for all occasions, though everything feels very upbeat and happy, I always feel like bobbing along, I’ve been in a good mood all day thanks to these guys. This is definitely a band to check out live if you ever get the chance, very happy, very bouncy, and very good.


-All pictures in this post were taken by Mike and his fancypants iPhone-