force of nature
May. 15th, 2010 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianSummary: Kaki King has ruined me for other guitarists.
Last night was fantastic. I got dressed up in my nifty corset-waisted pencil skirt, Wim and I ate sushi and curry udon at Hana, and we saw a really great concert.
We came in about twenty minutes into the opening act, An Horse. They were surprisingly good, in kind of a Tegan and Sara direction, and had some very happy people in the front row singing along. When I went to the bathroom between sets (and didn't have to wait more than 10 seconds, clearly a sign of the End Times) I overheard people talking about them playing at Sasquatch, which explains how so many people knew an Australian band I'd never heard of. They're just a drummer and a guitarist, with both singing, and the drums had a larger influence than is common in rock bands. The frequent incompatible rhythm changes were fun to hear but made dancing difficult, even the abbreviated version I was doing.
After their set, my legs were already sore from standing. Guess staying off my feet for a month and walking funny with the foot-immobilizing shoe have taken their toll.
And then, oh my god, Kaki King. She had a drummer and a guy blowing some kind of electronic instrument that seems to have been an EVI -- squared off, about a foot long, and black, with buttons along the shaft and a round attachment at the bottom to bend the sound. She started off with a teeny electric guitar and a pop song, but she knew why we were there. For the second song she broke out a giant blue-gray acoustic-electric beast with a thumpable belly and sound pads, and we got to see her trademark technique. (The song was not "Playing With Pink Noise" -- she didn't really use the sound pads much, for one thing -- but that's the only song anyone seems to have good video of, and it may be the same guitar modulo lighting.) Her fingers were a blur sometimes. And then she tuned the guitar completely differently on the fly and did a more typical virtuosity for the next song. So amazing!
There were a lot of different kinds of song: folksy instrumental, power pop, hard rock crossing into metal, some really stunning ambient. I was there to be astounded by her individual performance, and she delivered on that several times, but the songs on a more equal footing with the other band members were good too. Some very cool sounds came out of that EVI. The more metal-leaning songs suffered from a little too much of the standard melodic-to-fucking-loud progression, but they were well done and the band was clearly having a good time. King has a good voice, sweet and girly but able to stand up to the other instruments.
My absolute favorite part came in the encore. We were lucky to get one, actually; there was a weird moment when the applause died away and no one wanted to restart, but she came back alone anyhow, though she did say, "Are you absolutely sure? 'Cause that was weird." We were sure. :) A couple of times previously she'd laid down backing tracks first and then played over them, which was so cool to see, and the encore was the apex of that. She had an instrument I can't identify, a wide guitar neck set in the lap, and she played it with a slide and layered tracks until the rest of the band came on to play along. She came down to dance with us while her own music played. :) It all looked just like this; mystery instrument near the bottom.
One does not always wish to listen to Rolling Stone, but Kaki King is a guitar god, and, as I texted![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marzipan_pig, a fucking miracle. I kind of want to go to Portland tonight to see her again, though that would mean missing the Night Market and my legs would absolutely kill me. If you are in any of the cities she's still going to play, such as those in California, GO! You will not regret it.
Last night was fantastic. I got dressed up in my nifty corset-waisted pencil skirt, Wim and I ate sushi and curry udon at Hana, and we saw a really great concert.
We came in about twenty minutes into the opening act, An Horse. They were surprisingly good, in kind of a Tegan and Sara direction, and had some very happy people in the front row singing along. When I went to the bathroom between sets (and didn't have to wait more than 10 seconds, clearly a sign of the End Times) I overheard people talking about them playing at Sasquatch, which explains how so many people knew an Australian band I'd never heard of. They're just a drummer and a guitarist, with both singing, and the drums had a larger influence than is common in rock bands. The frequent incompatible rhythm changes were fun to hear but made dancing difficult, even the abbreviated version I was doing.
After their set, my legs were already sore from standing. Guess staying off my feet for a month and walking funny with the foot-immobilizing shoe have taken their toll.
And then, oh my god, Kaki King. She had a drummer and a guy blowing some kind of electronic instrument that seems to have been an EVI -- squared off, about a foot long, and black, with buttons along the shaft and a round attachment at the bottom to bend the sound. She started off with a teeny electric guitar and a pop song, but she knew why we were there. For the second song she broke out a giant blue-gray acoustic-electric beast with a thumpable belly and sound pads, and we got to see her trademark technique. (The song was not "Playing With Pink Noise" -- she didn't really use the sound pads much, for one thing -- but that's the only song anyone seems to have good video of, and it may be the same guitar modulo lighting.) Her fingers were a blur sometimes. And then she tuned the guitar completely differently on the fly and did a more typical virtuosity for the next song. So amazing!
There were a lot of different kinds of song: folksy instrumental, power pop, hard rock crossing into metal, some really stunning ambient. I was there to be astounded by her individual performance, and she delivered on that several times, but the songs on a more equal footing with the other band members were good too. Some very cool sounds came out of that EVI. The more metal-leaning songs suffered from a little too much of the standard melodic-to-fucking-loud progression, but they were well done and the band was clearly having a good time. King has a good voice, sweet and girly but able to stand up to the other instruments.
My absolute favorite part came in the encore. We were lucky to get one, actually; there was a weird moment when the applause died away and no one wanted to restart, but she came back alone anyhow, though she did say, "Are you absolutely sure? 'Cause that was weird." We were sure. :) A couple of times previously she'd laid down backing tracks first and then played over them, which was so cool to see, and the encore was the apex of that. She had an instrument I can't identify, a wide guitar neck set in the lap, and she played it with a slide and layered tracks until the rest of the band came on to play along. She came down to dance with us while her own music played. :) It all looked just like this; mystery instrument near the bottom.
One does not always wish to listen to Rolling Stone, but Kaki King is a guitar god, and, as I texted
marzipan_pig, a fucking miracle. I kind of want to go to Portland tonight to see her again, though that would mean missing the Night Market and my legs would absolutely kill me. If you are in any of the cities she's still going to play, such as those in California, GO! You will not regret it.
