Blogtown, PDX

Friday, November 16, 2007

Music M.I.A. at the Roseland Last Night: You Shoulda Been There

Posted by Chas Bowie on Fri, Nov 16 at 4:30 PM

In this week’s paper, I expressed my general state of fandom for M.I.A. along with a few misgivings. What I didn’t write, because it wasn’t especially pertinent, is that in interviews I often find her to be abrasive, and her last publicity tour profiled the chip on her shoulder as much as it did Kala. And since I had heard mixed things about her live shows, I approached last night’s sold-out Roseland concert with the following anticipation: “I just hope she doesn’t half-ass this show and make me dislike her.” As it turns out, I’m a fucking idiot.

The Sri Lankan sensation murderfied the room last night with one of the loudest, hardest, and dopest concerts I’ve seen in forever. Portland turned out in full effect, with tons of kids wearing their brightest, ugliest clothes and day-glo sunglasses, and almost everybody in the joint ready to dance. Low Budget came out to man the turntables and slid into Kala’s opening track, “Bamboo Banger,” which always gives me chills, even on my ipod. MIA and hypewoman Cherry exploded onto the stage with frenetic bombast before dropping into dual “both hands on the wheel, reclined seat” stances to ride out “Bamboo Banger“‘s relentless, zooming beat.

After that, all bets were off as she performed damn near every song from Arular and Kala, peppered by gunshots and airhorns from Low Budget. MIA did not stand still for one second of the set—dancing, pacing, and at one point, climbing from the stage-right speakers into the upper balcony. When the obligatory “everybody get onstage to dance” moment came, the show’s global, multi-cultural theme came to a screeching halt, but Portland made up for its collective fair skin with pure enthusiasm. And to that redhead dude in the teal shirt—you made the concert for me, sir. Watching you let your freak flag fly was the highlight of a great show.

Hearing nearly all of MIA’s songs in one sitting (if I could have changed one thing, I would have loved to have heard her using some of the Piracy Funds Terrorism beats, particularly the Salt-n-Pepa’d “Sunshowers”), I was knocked out by how many great songs she was, and what magnificent beats she coaxes out of her producers. I’ve been listening to Kala today and haven’t changed my enthusiasm level to “severe,” but I was certainly blown away last night by her generosity to the audience and that unique ability of hers to incorporate a million different aesthetics and influences into something unmistakably hers.

Photos courtesy Todd Cooper.

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Comments

I totally agree (here's my blog post about the show: http://blog.oregonlive.com/qpdx/2007/11/mia_take_me_away.html)

Just one little nitpick. It's Bamboo Banga, not Banger.

Posted by qpdx | November 16, 2007 5:25 PM

I drove up to Seattle a few years back to see her with LCD Soundsystem, and while it was good, I was a little underwhelmed, especially because LCD killed it. I did enjoy her inability to dance, though. Was Rye Rye there? I heard she was doing a few shows on this tour, and wasn't sure if that extended to the West Coast.

I'm sorry I missed this show though. Oh, to be broke. Chas, maybe you can help answer this: why did she not release Paper Planes as her first single? Kala could have been about eight times as huge if that song was scheduled to be the summertime jam that it deserves to be. There's no way that releasing it now, with the onset of winter, does her any good.

Posted by Rob. | November 16, 2007 7:03 PM

I dunno, I thought it felt kind of phoned in. I couldn't help compare it to Go! Team show last month and feel that MIA was just going through the motions as opposed to actually having a good time.

Posted by caustic | November 16, 2007 8:43 PM

It helps if you don't have your head up your ass caustic.

MIA put on a great show last night.

Posted by OJ Simpson | November 16, 2007 9:25 PM

Anyone attend both the M.I.A. show AND the Girl Talk show at Roseland during MusicfestNW?

If so, which was more redonkulous?

Great review, Chas.

Posted by bird flew | November 16, 2007 10:20 PM

What, I'm not entitled to my opinion? I've seen MIA before, she always puts on a good show, but I've seen a lot better out of her. Get her in front of an audience that is mostly Tamil and you will see some real enthusiasm.

Posted by caustic | November 17, 2007 1:08 AM

Thanks for the "Banga" correction. My iTunes tells me "Banger," but I should know better than to rely on that. I think Paper Planes would have made a brilliant single, but there's a lot of animosity between she & Diplo (who produced the track), and it doesn't have that global aesthetic that she's going for so strongly with Kala. The "Bird Flu" video shows her lamping with a bunch of third world youth and has a looped chicken squawk: I think that's the image she wanted to identify with most. But I agree that "Paper Planes" is one of the jamming-est songs of the year. (Especially the remix with Bun B.) Finally, I didn't see Girl Talk at the Roseland, but I was at his first show at Holocene. That was a great show, but if forced to choose, I'd go with M.I.A. Has Girl Talk been able to develop a live show that lasts more than 25 minutes yet?

Posted by chas | November 17, 2007 11:05 AM

Oh yeah—no Rye Rye. That would have been cool.

Posted by chas | November 17, 2007 9:15 PM

i almost didnt go to the show, but my friend gave me a ticket and i can imagine if i didnt go. it was so hype!! just what i needed for a crappy rainy nite.

Posted by jeff hansen | November 19, 2007 3:40 PM

MIA even showed up at the after party and hung out she's a rad chick. I'd banga.

Posted by AC Slater | November 21, 2007 1:37 AM

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