On November 1st, M.I.A. played the first of a pair of New York City shows promoting the release of her new album, Matangi. The evening began with a surprise: a brief intro over the house PA, and then a live projected Skype feed of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. And though much of his speech was lost amidst technical difficulties, the message was clear – this would not be an ordinary concert, but something else entirely: an unpredictable mix of music and noise and spectacle and political statements.
Once the feed ended, stagehands rushed on to break down the screen, and a DJ began spinning. Beats rattled around the room, careening off the balconies and getting sucked into the spaces in the ceiling. The venue, Terminal 5, is a weird boxy space where nothing sounds good – least of all heavy rattling club rhythms – but it didn’t much matter. The thundering bass overwhelmed most of the finer musical details, bludgeoning and hissing, not entirely listenable but eminently danceable.
And after a half-hour or so of pre show music, a clatter of percussion and an explosion of strobes, the show began. The beat dropped, M.I.A. appeared, and the crowd went bananas.
But right off the bat, there seemed to be a bit of a gulf between the star and the audience. Perhaps it was the mediocre sound, perhaps it just took her a while to warm up, but it didn’t quite seem like everyone was tuned into the same wavelength. It’s not that M.I.A. was lacking in charisma, but more that she seemed slightly removed – standing alone, clad in gold and silver lamé, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, flanked by a pair of dancers that seemed to move on-and-offstage with little sense of rhyme and reason.
But that only lasted for a short time, and before long, everything clicked into focus. The sunglasses came off, a live drummer joined forces with the DJ, the dancers became enhancement instead of distraction. And M.I.A. started to smile. She was suddenly completely engaged, a ringmaster conducting with ferocity, abandon and total glee; moving from stoic to irrepressible in the space of an instant. The audience followed in sync as each song hit, stomping and shouting and dancing without reservation.
All genres and styles blended into the backing tracks and DJ selection, merged into a strange mutant hybrid of thrash bhangra, baile funk, crunk, and booty bass; an equal-opportunity jackhammer attack. And the music was only one component of the experience, a wall-to-wall expanse of people bathed in sweat and colored powder, strafed by strobe lights and clattering rhythms, having the time of their lives.
Through it all, M.I.A. kept the momentum steady, and the focus razor-sharp. She seemed comfortable, performing without pretense or conceit. She moved back and forth, stepped from the stage across the pit, stood on the barrier, and then crossed it – passing the mic from person to person, engaging the crowd directly, face-to-face, hand-to-hand. She invited a couple people onstage to dance, further breaking down the boundaries.
It wasn’t even really about the music itself, it was about the music as a catalyst for everything else going on. It was a show that defied expectation or even rational analysis – celebratory and immediate, entertaining and exhilarating all at once. As a concert, it was pretty good; as a performance, it was fantastic; as an experience, it was incomparable.
Photos © 2013 Marnie Ann Joyce. Additional photos from this event can be seen here.
Whoa!!!!!