The venue: London Brixton Academy
The date: 15th November 2004 Tonight is a happy accident. I’m meant to be at home, feet up on coffee table, watching Dead Ringers. Instead, I’m south of the river and in the company of a clone army of mini Karens. To my left: a tiny, tiara-wearing hobbit girl. To my right: the same, only bigger. Much bigger. With a beard. Welcome to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ punk rock pantomime.
Tonight, Karen O is The Swamp Thing, via Jack Skellington, resplendent in a tassel-covered leotard. At least, she is once the sensible suit has been torn off post ‘Bang’. As I fuck I may well suck, but you, Ms O, are a debatable fashion icon and no mistake.
But I’m not here for style tips – everyone on the planet is fully aware that Karen O is the spoilt child at every school, blessed with a dress-up box too large and an attention span too short. I’m here for the rock, and you can say whatever you want about the YYYs’ credentials in this field, but in front of me, right now, there’s a rock show. I still don’t get the obscene adoration afforded to Ms O and company – later in the evening she’ll fall to her knees and request some love, three times – but they do know how to get kids dancing. Yes, the jury’s still out on whether O’s a true enigma of our time or merely a short-fused gal with a bloated sense of self importance, but when love is requested, it comes in waves. Plus, you don’t get anywhere just by acting like a brat and wearing stupid clothes, Billy Idol aside – the YYYs have tunes aplenty. ‘Pin’, check. ‘Machine’, check. A fucking superb encore of ‘Y Control’, check. I’d offer an opinion on the couples’ favourite ‘Maps’, but I was taking a piss at the time. It sounded pretty okay from the urinals. O prances and pounces like a tiger, and screeches like one with its balls in a bear trap; cigarette-thin Nick riffs out, stage left; and drummer Brian glues the whole thing together. He’s the real driving force behind these songs, offering stability to what would otherwise be an unbearable mess.
The one major problems with YYYs is that, whilst they do have some amazing songs, they do know their way around a filler track or two. Therefore, we’re treated to ‘Tick’ very late on, a song more likely to drive me out of the venue (it does) than draw me down to the mosh. The great songs leave the average ones woefully exposed. Whilst that wouldn’t be a problem in a smaller venue, where sheer energy could carry them through, in the cavernous Academy I just switch off. Also, after some 90 minutes I’m tired of what are essentially the same songs mildly re-jigged, although for the first 45 I was putty in their hands. Bands like this shouldn’t play for so long – can’t the government pass some act or other?
But I digress. YYYs play fast, loud and messily, and do it to huge audiences. They are punk rock for both prom queens and back-alley bums – the only rockers we were told to swallow that didn’t stick in the throat. Oh, and they beat The Kumars hands down.