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Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Barrowlands, Glasgow
Review by Music Vice editor Brian Banks May 23, 2006

Wow!!! Yeah, no prizes for guessing how great this show was! The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been sitting somewhere near the top of my 'must see' list of favourite bands, ever since first hearing their stunning debut Fever To Tell back in 2003, which I'm still hooked on after three years later, and on top of that I've already established a mild addiction to this year's follow up release Show Your Bones.  Gulp!... yup, I well and truly caught the Yeah Yeah Yeahs bug, so when I found out they were playing in Glasgow I just had to be there. And man, I just knew that they would be amazing live, but honestly even my wildest expectations were surpassed. I can hardly believe my own hype.

Now bare with me as I mutter through a summary of the preamble of this magical night. Firstly, I missed the first support band, something which seems to be a recurring theme with me because the same thing has happened at the last four or fives gigs I've attended. While the first band was on stage I was wondering around the mean streets of the 'Barra's trying to find the venue - and to anyone unfamiliar with Glasgow, trust me when I tell you that you'd rather not spend too much time walking around the Barrowlands area, because it's a bit shady. I somehow got lost, but luckily I turned a corner and found a convenient trail of gig-goers to follow.

"The Services delivered the most torturously-boring barrage of noise I've possibly ever had the displeasure of witnessing and hearing."

I was a bit disappointed to miss the first band, but my oh my, if they were anything like the other support band then I consider myself lucky for missing them. Before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took to the stage a duo called The Services took to the stage. The Services delivered the most torturously-boring barrage of noise I've possibly ever had the displeasure of witnessing and hearing.

The Services announced themselves as being two guys from New York; one a older looking guy dressed in a school blazer and a cap; you know, the whole Angus Young look. So these two blokes stood behind a pair of synthesizers, a cymbal and a whistle, and proceeded to play lots of programmed beats and noises. At first it was actually quite interesting, but as their set went people in the crowd lost interest. The energetic younger guy did the vocals too, while jumping about and hitting his cymbal with a drumstick - but all this energy was lost on what was just a mass of boring repetitive noises. Every song sounded pretty damn similar to the last one, and it seemed to be a massive relief to everyone when the Services finally finished their set. There's no reason why good music cannot be made by combining the elements of rock music with lots of programmed effects and synthesis, (take Kasabian for example), but this was just a lot of bad noise.

When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took to the stage suddenly the whole room was electrified in an instant. I had my doubts about how good the atmosphere would be but if anything the fact that everyone had just been dullified by the Services made things even better - sometimes the best support band is a crap one. But hey, the YYY's' didn't need anyone to make them look and sound good, they did that themselves, and heck, if every Yeah Yeah Yeahs gig is anywhere near as good as this one then I have no doubt that they must be one of the best live bands on the planet.

Karen O' commanded everyone's attention as she moved around the centre of the stage, and her voice sounded incredible. She was dressed in some kind of leotard, and later had a costume change into some-kind-of-something-else for the encore... there was no risk of Karen being upstaged in her stage gear by her other band members, not even by the guy in the old German army panzer tank overalls.

The atmosphere went berserk from the second-song Pin, and it set things up for the rest of the night. Pin had everyone bouncing, with that oh-so-cool guitar riff on the verse and then everyone was bouncing all over each other for the choruses of "bam-bam-bam".  Song after song, it all sounded immense. Phenomenon was the biggest hit of the newer songs, but really it was all the songs from Fever To Tell that shone - I never quite realised just how many brilliant songs they packed into that debut album. Maps was fantastic, same for Y Control. When the YYY's left the stage after an hour or so the crowd responsed with thunderous claps and stomps demanding more. The band came back out and of course the encore was every bit as magic, with a fitting climax of orgasmic screams by Karen O as she sung Date With The Night.

"This was the best live gig I've ever attended in the UK...nothing I've seen before came close to the feverous atmosphere I experienced during this show..."

This was the best live gig I've ever attended in the UK. I''ve seen hundreds of bands in many venues all over Britain but nothing I've seen before came close to the feverous atmosphere I experienced during this show - and it was all friendly too, everyone was just having a good time. Perhaps it was something to do with the setting; in the Barrowlands Ballroom you get so close to the band, with a rather low ceiling too which contains the walls of sound tight around you. The setting is much more ragged, much more rock and roll than so many other venues - there's no fancy architecture or lighting, just good ol' wooden floors and the whole minimalist vibe.

If you want further illustration of just how uber this night then you should have seen my t-shirt after the gig. Before the show I'd bought a nice clean white YYY's tee from the merch stand and pulled it over my top. By the end of the night that once bright white shirt now had a dirty technicolour pattern, after being saturated in water and sweat and covered in various stain markings including lipstick, beer and blood! I feel a bit sorry for whoever was unfortunate enough to lip-smack my back, but how about that for a mosh pit trophy?

© Brian Banks

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - www.yeahyeahyeahs.com