I saw
Miike Snow at the El Rey on Tuesday. They played Wednesday too, and also both weekends at Coachella. I wish I could've gone to all four shows.
I wish I was there right now.
I had one of those
ecstatic crowd experiences; everyone was in an awesome, great mood. We were all there to enjoy the music and the show. There was no bullshit or drama or weirdness. Just a bunch of
hipsters having a merry old time.
When the
show started (I'm sorry to say I didn't recognize the song they led with, so I can't link to it here) the band came out wearing matching black satin jackets with hoods and bronze
neutral masks. Their set consisted of a large circular console in the middle of the stage, painted black and fronted with rows of gold lights. With the massive amounts of smoke and the yellow lights the whole thing gave the effect of a spaceship made of fire. Manned by attractive aliens. I turned to my friend and say, real excited like, "I love space!" I realized after the fact that, out of context, this could've been a confusing statement.
I don't consider myself a music reviewer. I don't have the vocabulary, and also
I sometimes feel shy about my musical taste, because some of it wanders towards what some might call "techno" (slander!). So I'm not going to go into great detail about the music. But I'll say this, my only gripe about the show (other than the abysmal opener,
The Big Pink) was the lack of dancing space. But I can't really complain about that because I got down despite the tight quarters, and everyone was busy having too much fun to mind the occasional neighborly bump.
I feel like Miike Snow is
intelligent music for science fiction nerds that like to dance. I feel like Miike Snow is branded towards people who reread Fahrenheit 451 every couple years and are ashamed to admit they like "Toxic" by Britney Spears. Miike Snow, for me, builds upon my years of listening to
David Bowie and DJ Shadow and Massive Attack and Daft Punk and makes perfect sense. I'm friggin obsessed right now. They put on a great show-it kind of made my week.
