So Easy

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concert review: Royksopp w/ Annie @ The Opera House(Toronto, Ontario), September 20, 2005

A few nights ago was the Norweigan double-header of Royksopp and Annie at The Opera House. I was more excited to see Annie than Royksopp. Well, to be more accurate, I was more curious to see what all the hype was about. I had enjoyed enough the samples I'd heard beforehand and of course she's lovely. Unfortunately, I found her set a little underwhelming. First of all, for her band setup which featured her on vocals, her dreadlocked guitarist and another gentleman on keyboard and programming duties, The Opera House wasn't an appropriate sized venue. I think the performance would have been better in a smaller venue because really, other than herself ;-), there wasn't anything visually stimulating about her performance. Musically, she fared well. I thought she was somewhat stiff at the beginning but did loosen up as her set progressed. Even if the bubblegum pop factor was a little high and the sound somewhat mechanical, I couldn't really deny the infectiousness of the music, especially with songs like the sleazy disco-pop of "Chewing Gum" or the Kylie Minogue-meets-Saint Etienne dance-pop of "Heartbeat". On a certain level, the music's more than decent dance pop. However, on occasion it's hard to take some of her music seriously such as the coy "Wedding" with her sly(somewhat silly) repeated refrain of "I do, I do, I do", complete with her pointing to the crowd each time. The musical component was heavily dependent on preprogrammed melodies and beats, which was augmented by some minor live guitar licks. If the musical instrumentation was performed live, I'd probably be more impressed. Don't get me wrong; I like her music, but seeing her live didn't make me love it.

I can't remember where I'd read this, but yes the lads of Royksopp wore coordinating monochromatic shirts with dark ties which reminded me of Kraftwerk. They had an assortment of keyboards and other electronic do-dads like drums onstage with them, with their band name emblazened behind them. Visually, the lighting during their performance constantly drenched the band in hues of red, purple and blue. Being only two persons behind keyboards, the guys actually put alot of energy into their performance as they played their keyboards as well as when one of the gentlemen picked up drumsticks to play the electro drumkit. I only have their debut album "Melody A.M." so I can't speak about the songs from their second album. Highlights included their funky instrumental "Eple", the house-y "Poor Leno" and the pop-vocal performance of "Remind Me". On at least a couple of tracks the band utilized the vocals of a lovely female guest vocalist.

Royksopp were still hit and miss for me. While they have nuances in their music that I quite enjoy, when their music leans towards a run-of-the mill dance sound, especially on some of their instrumental excursions, I start to lose interest. Still, Toronto seemed to enjoy them alot. I happened to be near the front towards the right side of the stage and I was standing near a group of people[I think they were Eastern European] who were dancing up a storm like it were a rave. I got my dancing shoes later on also. The band was kind enough to give us TWO encores, saving their best song, "So Easy", for the second encore. If you've ever heard the song, it sounds like an Ennio Morricone sample combined with a dance beat[although according to the liner notes of the album, the audio sample's a song called "Blue On Blue" written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David]. In any case, I would have preferred more songs along the line of that than some of the instrumental dance tracks they performed earlier which were less interesting. On a scale of 10, I'd say the entire evening rated a good 7. Yay, to Norway!
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The current issue of The Montreal Mirror interviews Annie. Last week's issue of eye profiled her.

The Straight speaks with The New Pornographers' Carl Newman about the band's "governing impulse towards high concept", even attributing this to their recent lyric modification during their performance of "Use It" on Late Night With Conan O'Brien.

The Coast discusses how to get into "sold out" shows. Take notes.