Date With the Night
by Solvej Schou
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
(Photo by Gregory Bojorquez)
YEAH YEAH YEAHS
at the Henry Fonda Theater, April 18
By now everyone's aware that Williamsburg has re-defined the map of rock & roll. But Yeah Yeah Yeahs don't just harness the pure energy and smirking cool aesthetic of downtown NYC forebears Patti Smith or Blondie. And their two-year rise to certain stardom doesn't merely mirror the trash-'n'-hipster catwalk of Williamsburg's Bedford Avenue. Are they the new Strokes? Who cares! Does YYYs singer Karen O sport the diva cojones and slippery Souxsie growl to excite a mounting horde of fans? Absolutely.
"You know a band is good when their record hasn't come out yet and they can fill a concert hall." KCRW's intro to Yeah Yeahs' sold-out stint at the Henry Fonda Theater last Friday night could only hint at the rock theatrics to come. In front of clamoring glamour grrrls and salivating boy toys, the threesome launched into a crazed set of 13 songs and three encores culled from their Master EP and upcoming post-punk sex masterpiece/major-label debut Fever To Tell. Black-clad and downright serious, guitarist Nick Zinner and drummer Brian Chase took the band's darkened staccato grind to tighter heights, and disco thumper "Date With the Night" jump-started heaps of joyous indie-ass shaking.
Karen O knew the hype and set out to prove it. A Poly Styrene tease in her Day-Glo green shirt, hot pants and purple fishnets, she colored new come-on "Cold Night" nice and dirty, and saturated EP favorites "Bang" and "Miles Away" with not-so-coy vibrato groans. She shimmied and wailed, pointed and rolled on the ground, held the mic in her mouth midscream during pop-shock number "Art Star," and still insisted that "L.A.'s gonna party tonight!" at the end of the show. The YYYs are performance art of the best kind: sweat-drenched music with a shit-faced grin