Yeasayer at The Village | Review

Yeasayer in The Village on December 1st, 2012

Brooklyn sonic scientists Yeasayer made a very welcome return to Dublin to kick-off the European leg of their ‘Fragrant World’ tour. Tonight’s gig was originally scheduled for a September date in the nearby Button Factory but was postponed after guitarist (a loose term in a band like Yeasayer) Anand Wilder became a father. Last time we checked, the gig wasn’t sold out but you’d find that hard to believe judging by the amount of people crammed into the Village.

The venue change was not without casualties. One of the big talking points of this tour was the innovative stage set-up Yeasayer were bringing with them. A collaborative project between the band and The Creators Project (led by artist Casey Reas). Looking at pictures of the stage from earlier US shows, there’s no way it could be accommodated by the Village’s modest stage. What we get instead is a multicoloured LED curtain.

Frontman Chris Keating has been quoted saying that he wants Yeasayer to “sonically challenge Rihanna in the clubs”. A grandiose ambition that’s admirable to say the least. Whilst The Village isn’t a club per se, it is a Saturday night on one of Dublin’s busiest streets so we’ll treat tonight as Yeasayer trying to impress the club crowd.

Getting right down to business with Blue Paper they make good on their competing with the clubs promise with some slick melodies and RnB beats. Elusively backlit, the band are mere silhouettes to all in attendance. This puts everyone’s focus on the music, which is only fair given the concentration invested by the parties involved in making it.

The stage is crammed with all manner of instruments, amplifiers, pedals and a whole host of other musical delights that have the band jumping around like children in a toy store.

Yeasayer play their genre hopping gig with a setlist borrowed heavily from their latest release, ‘Fragrant World’. ‘All Hour Cymbals’ favourite 2080 goes down a storm with some pitch perfect falsettos and a breakaway sing-along which not many people know the exact words to.

On the album, Wait for the Summer is quite a mellow affair but when it’s played live tonight it’s a lot more immediate. It’s more urgent and altogether more fitting. It picks the pace straight back up after the slower, stuttering, swelling bass of Demon Road. O.N.E. also gets a live reinterpretation that doesn’t work on many levels. The song is de-constructed and re-imagined in such a way that it loses any of the pop flourishes that made it such a treat to begin with. The lyrics are the only part of the original that stay intact but even they lose the spring in their step with this sloppy move.

All in all, it’s an impressive show from a musical point of view but as a performance it comes across as unfinished. We’re going to put that down to Yeasayer having to use their back-up stage show in a venue that was far too small for such an ambitious band. Hopefully they’ll be back in 2013 for a weekend stealing festival slot that we know they’re capable of delivering.

Photo: Alessio Michelini: Yeasayer – The Academy 2012

Setlist:
Blue Paper
Henrietta
2080
Longevity
O.N.E.
Don’t Come Close
Madder Red
Demon Road
Wait for the Summer
Reagan’s Skeleton
Ambling Alp