Live Review
TV on the Radio – Tripod, Dublin
TV on the Radio arrive on these shores on the back of a swell of critical acclaim for their latest album ‘Dear Science’, a remarkable LP which manages to cram in more genres than we have space to mention here and somehow still sound focused and cohesive. So expectations tonight are high for the Brooklyn band when they take to the stage in front of a sold-out Tripod crowd.
The first few tracks are well performed with Tunde Adebimpe’s vocals coming across raw but strong and, as ever, beautifully rounded out by Kip Malone’s stunning fragile falsetto. But the show doesn’t really kick-start until the double-whammy of ‘Golden Age’ and ‘Wolf Like Me’ nearly take the roof off, the former, arguably the standout track on the latest album, is as funky a track as you’ll hear all year, and the latter is a raucous rock-out that really allows the band to let loose.
Unfortunately the rest of the gig struggles to match the peak reached on these two tracks, which is not to say that the rest of the gig is a wash-out, far from it, the music is never less than beguiling with the irrepressible funk of ‘Dancing Choose’ and the smouldering ‘Love Dog’ standing out. Perhaps it’s the missing brass section, so prominent on ‘Dear Science’, that causes a few songs to fall below what we would expect from a band as gifted as this.
TVOTR have always been a band who walk their own path, and while this is part of what makes them arguably the most imaginative and innovative band of the noughties the decision to leave out some of the stronger tracks from their latest opus is certainly a mis-step. Prime example being the choice of ‘Staring at the Sun’ to finish the show, it’s a fine track from the early ‘Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes’ album, full of squalling guitars and menacing drum patterns, but it’s no match for the hugely uplifting ‘Lover’s Day’, album closer on ‘Dear Science’ and a song made to end a night if ever there was one.
That said TVOTR’s second tier material remains streets ahead of what most others out there are producing and they remain the benchmark for innovative bands of today.
They are constantly engaging on stage and seem to really enjoy themselves up there, it’s just disappointing that some of the tracks lack the killer punch in the live setting they so devastatingly deliver on record.