The Inferno

Issue date: 6/15/09 Section: Frontline

Media Credit: Yeah Yeah Yeahs (www.yeahyeahyeahs.com) With electrifying vocals and perfomance techniques, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs showed fans a phenomenal time at the Rave in Milwaukee.

For those who are not familiar with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, become familiar. As a fan for quite some time now, it is hard to classify them into one genre.They incorporate punk, rock, indie, electro, dance, funk and are spearheaded by melodic and blissful vocals. They themselves are a complete contradiction. That's the beauty of them…They are a beautiful mess.

Unfortunately, I could not catch the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Aragon Ballroom here in Chicago. But if their performance was anything like the show I caught at the Rave in Milwaukee they made 'Heads Roll.'

The first person that will catch your attention is the innovative front-runner Karen O. Her stylish and eccentric sense of fashion has had her featured in a number of fashion magazines to date. She changed outfits according to which song she was performing (a gold headdress for "Gold Lion," as an example) and her explosive behavior will blow you away. She shows flashes of provocative thrashing, jerking side-to-side, yoga poses, spitting beer at fans, and at times slow, smooth dancing. Her soothing but alerting vocals can't help but remind you of Enya mixed with Blondie. She awed the crowd with her glow-in-the-dark dress, spandex and attachable wings. Oh, did I mention she sang an entire song while giving fellatio to the microphone?

Guitarist, Nick Zinner and drummer, Brian Chase wore all black and clung to the background but played impeccably. The set list encompassed all three of their albums, from the crude-punkesque days of Fever to Tell with songs "Y-Control" and "Maps" to the funk-rock album of Gold Lion's "Phenomena" and playing their new hits "Heads will Roll" and "Hysteric." While they flowed through their past and present music, it became more apparent how perfectly each song tied together.

Not only have the Yeah Yeah Yeahs evolved musically, but they still sound like the same original three playing in a dive bar in New York. Every song was riveting and the YYYs flowed smoothly between different songs and genres elegantly and explosively.

If one word could sum up their captivating show it would be electric. They are electrifying performers. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are some of the best performers touring right now. Emphasis should be put on the word 'performance.' It wasn't just a show, it was one of the most innovative and outrageous performances I've seen in quite some time.

From Karen O's expressive and unique dancing to the ongoing outrageous visual affects (which included a giant, illuminated, rotating eyeball and fully equipped confetti cannons) the Yeah Yeah Yeahs gave an unparalleled performance. More importantly, the YYY's put all their hearts into their music. They felt their music, and the fans did too. For once I wasn't the only one in the crowd causing a raucous, everyone in the crowd was infatuated and we all "danced 'til we were dead".

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