Andrew and I went to see OK Go last night at the TLA in Philly. The opening acts were Oppenheimer and Longwave. The show started a little before 9:00 with Oppenheimer taking the stage. I had never heard of them before, they are a two-piece band from Dublin that plays short pop/synth songs. The drummer does most of the singing and between-song banter. They were high-energy and had some very catchy songs. While I’m not a fan of the robotic sounding vocals, it fit in with the type of music they were playing. For a first opening act, they did a fabulous job of warming up the audience… I will definitely sample some of their music online and possibly pick up one of their two releases.
After a short break while they reconfigured the stage, Longwave came on. They were OK, I would say just “alright”. Then they mentioned that their regular guitarist was not there due to the birth of his first baby and they got a friend to sit in on guitar all night. It didn’t sound as if they were playing together for the first time… I may want to sample some of their stuff online as well – there was one in particular “Satellite” I believe that sounded really good – maybe with everyone present it would have been a better overall performance. The strength of the band (like most in this genre) was the rhythm section.
Then OK Go came on and lit up the house. They bring such a fabulous energy to their performances, they are a tremendous live band. They have apparently been recording a new album and this show (the first on their tour) was going to be the big kick-off of that new album. However, they haven’t finished the album yet. They talked about not having enough lyrics for a complete album.
They started off with something slow and new – obviously I don’t know they names of their new stuff, but it was pretty good. They played it again later with more guitar and accompaniment and it sounded phenomenal then. Then they played “Get Over It” which really got the place rocking. Damian Kulash (the lead singer) forgot some of the lyrics on this (one of their most famous songs) and later explained it as having never understood all of the old lyrics, he just had them memorized. You could never tell that this was the first show in a long time from them, they were tight and running well.
They played about 6 new songs and I must say that I am VERY much looking forward to their new release, they all sounded great. I’m not sure about the folk song they did at one point, but they didn’t say for sure that one is on the new release.
After a short break Damian came out and said that they were going to do something that no one has seen except for maybe at church. We weren’t sure what to expect, but they put out a table and came out with a set of hand bells and played one of their slow songs on the bells. They had the white gloves and all… it was oddly cool.
In my opinion, you can never go wrong seeing OK Go live. They are a highly entertaining and spirited rock band with plenty of catchy pop rock songs to fill a show. Again, as with most of the bands that I love, the rhythm section drives the band. Not to say that the remainder of the band aren’t great, it is just a formula for this type of rock that works. Have a kick-ass rhythm section and the foundation is there. They sounded better than when I saw them two years ago at the same venue (they opened for Cheap Trick) – but that can be because they were the headliner this time around.
Overall, a very memorable and enjoyable evening.
