Blonde Redhead Gig Review

Here is a review I did of the Blonde Redhead show in Sydney last Tuesday. It can be found in this week's issue of the Sydney street press, The Brag.

Blonde Redhead
The Red Sun Band
Leader Cheetah

The Metro, Sydney
24th July, 2007

It has been a long three year wait for fans after the New York trio cancelled their last maiden tour of Australia. Many of the anxious crowd were here to bask in their new tracks (of the seventh studio release, 23) and the old that fill their impressive back catalogue live for the first time.

Adelaidians Leader Cheetah and locals The Red Sun Band opened the evening. At the tail end of their Hopetoun residency, The Red Sun Band played a predominantly slow tempo set. It would have been great to hear the Sydney three-piece contrast their breathy, drone-rock with more throatier and sharper segments as they failed to hit the back wall for most of their set.

Tonight would reveal Blonde Redhead’s unique sound – a combination of spacious, ambient layers and a sharp, rhythmic, NY underground edge by fusing both their recorded and live sound through a sampler packed with backing tracks.

Drummer Amadeo Pace created a brilliant rhythm that cut through the very thick mix with his acute, sharp attack and drum pad triggers. Brother Simone Pace, constructing each of his guitar pieces, reversing and looping his many guitar lines to weave each song together before laying his many rhythmic chops over the top; and Kizu Makino screeching and wisping her sweet-nothing vocals to complete the sound that has evolved over their fourteen year career.

The set included songs "23", "Spring and by Summer Fall", "Falling Man" and set highlight "In Particular". The abrasiveness of the distorted guitars and fast tempo of this song juxtaposed 90% of the sound heard that night with a friend best describing Makino and Simone Pace as having “sinewy guitar sex”. The encore (as requested by the crowd) included "Equus" and "Melody".

This ambitious task seemed to polarise a lot of the gig-goers. Some were put off by the backing vocal recordings and the partial loss of a live experience. Others were impressed on how those same songs were transfigured in a live setting with subtle changes in between. Fortunately I was part of the latter: Blonde Redhead produce and record their songs much like 90’s band Lush and My Bloody Valentine and to see a fusion of the two disparate worlds made me forget what was in the background and appreciate the complex dimensionality of each song.

Here's a clip of Blonde Redhead playing "In Particular" off their 2000 release Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons



C.