« A tournament preview: the rest (pt.1) - The Bends | Main | Coachella: Day 1 (con't) - Jesus & Mary Chain, Interpol, Sonic Youth & Björk »
May 04, 2007
Coachella: Björk Live @ Coachella stage - 4.27.07
[Photo cred]
Bjork - Coachella stage
From an eye candy perspective Björk gave far and away the most visually appealing performance of the weekend. Backed by a full orchestra and an exposition of bizarre electronics that looked more like alien control rooms than music making devices. Imagine a giant sampler about the size of a blackjack table crossed with an otherworldly electro orb manipulated by toy blocks being spun by a DJ and you come close to conceptualizing the look of this mesmerizing gear. You tend to think everything has already been invented by now. Seeing these dudes mess around with stuff resembling baby toys atop electronic touch screens didn't compute.
On the topic of screens I have a bone to pick with the jumbo-tron direction during Björk's headlining slot. Dear sirs, too much footage of these devices and not enough of the main event. She was just as colorful and much more dynamic to look at. From far away the imagery provided a cool visual addition to the on-goings of the stage but the main event was Björk and not a couple of geeks playing with cool toys. It was a disservice for everyone watching outside of the immediate stage area.
[Photo: Paul Familetti
Turntablist DJ Shadow, who took the stage opposite Björk across the venue grounds at the outdoor stage, could at times be heard during lulls in Björk's set. Towards the end of the night when a ferocious “Hyperballad” turned into a drum ‘n bass injected industrial freak-out I honestly thought Shadow might have made his way over to the main stage to show off his skills for some sort of collaborative mash-up of headliners. Björks band rivaled Shadow’s cut mastery is the point.
Her performance will likely go down as the best of the festival. My own casual fan status and personal ignorance of large chunks of her back catalog (as well as grogginess from my short slumber) puts me at a disadvantage for complete breakdowns of song nuances so you'll need to look elsewhere for that type of formal review. That being said I think the performance, artistry, visual elements, and showmanship of Björk's tremendous show was unrivaled all weekend. Nobody came close
Boing Boing has a write up on everything you wanted to know (and more) on the newfangled reactable devices used in Björk's performance.
Posted by Merry Swankster at May 4, 2007 10:45 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/904
