Katie BainMiike Snow
10/30/12
Better Than: Actual snow
Miike Snow finished their fall tour last night with an All Hallow's Eve eve show at The Palladium in Hollywood. The Swedish act sounded tight and right as they tore through hits and deeper cuts from their albums Miike Snow and Happy to You. The rich, cleanly sophisticated and ever-more intense electro-pop was accompanied by a relatively simple visual show that was both restrained and grand. Fellow Swedes Niki and the Dove opened.
The evening went something like this:
9:59PM: I pick a spot to stand. Three sexy mimes walk by.
10:05PM: Close inspection of the ticket reveals that it is a 5+ show.
Forget it, four year olds; Credit: Katie Bain
10:09PM: I see a small person in the crowd who might actually be five years old.
10:18PM: Roughly eight percent of the attendees are wearing Halloween costumes. There are hippies, disco dancers, sailers, the mad hatter, a bunch of hipsters, and a few woman in those vague costumes women sometimes do when they just throw on a bustier, a tutu, fishnet stockings and a pair of heels.
10:22PM: The show opens with a long, serene intro where the musician-less stage is bathed in red light and filled with fog while a sort of ambient, angelic sounding music plays. This lasts for awhile. “How much fog do you think they've got?” asks a guy in bunny ears and a three piece suit, as the cloud wafts out over the audience.
10:30PM: The five members of the band come onstage, and singer Andrew Wyatt has some sort of black costume-type hood over his head, momentarily making the group look like mildly satanic what with all the fog and red lighting and whatnot. They're also all dressed in black. And they open with “Enter the Joker's Lair.” Perhaps I'm projecting but they seem to be embracing the holiday spirit.
10:40PM: The energy picks up considerably with “The Wave” although the crowd's dancing so far is best described as “restrained.”
10:46PM: “This is a fucking dance club, right?” asks Wyatt as people finish their huge cups of beer and the crowd loosens up. The richly layered electronic-infused synth rock gets progressively deeper (and louder) with each song on the foundation of the group's driving, multilayered piano and keyboards and singular military march style percussion.
10:51PM Wyatt has a constant flow of hot tea at his disposable, suggesting vocal fatigue. There are definitely moments when his voice is mechanically filtered. Regardless, his voice is one the best parts about the band, and if his throat hurts he isn't letting on.
Credit: Katie Bain
10:55PM: The woman standing in front of me puts the other woman standing in front of me on her shoulders and they both dance to “Burial.” The muscle-ey man standing next to them seems impressed.
11:01PM: Someone blows up a bunch of condoms balloon-style and launches them into the air over the crowd.
11:13PM: A woman standing a few rows in front of me is either crying or laughing really hard. Either way, she is not wearing shoes or socks.
11:22PM “Black Tin Box” is spooky and intense and the sonic highlight of my night.
11:31PM: A fuse blows during “San Soleil” and the sound goes out, but the band doesn't realize what's happening and continues playing. Eventually the crowd stops dancing so enthusiastically. “I've been told that was one of the best outtros we've ever played,” Wyatt says when they realize that no one has heard a damn thing for the last few minutes. “Sorry, we'll send you the mp3.”
11:37PM: They play “Animal” and it's all good again.
11:40PM: Three years later and this song is still infectious as hell. The crowd goes wild. Dancing officially unrestrained. Mimes are loving it.
11:43PM: The show ends and the condom balloons slowly drop to the floor as the crowd disperses. Whoever is watching that five year old is like, “those are not toys.”
Personal Bias: Waiting on that mp3.
Overheard in the Crowd: “Holy shit. You can totally take the train to Day of the Dead downtown this weekend…for free. YOU CAN TOTALLY TAKE IT FOR FREE!!”
Random Notebook Dump: “Nordic electro psychedelia.”
Set list below
Top Ten Awkward Coachella Dance Move GIFs
World's Douchiest DJs: The Top Five
Top Five Girls From Hard Summer Who Are Out of My League
Skrillex Opens Grillex, the First Dubstep-Themed Food Truck
Set list:
Enter the Jokers Lair
The Wave
Cult Logic
Bavarian #1 (Say You Will)
Burial
Pretender
Silvia
God Help This Divorce
Black and Blue
Paddling Out
Black Tin Box
Devil's Work
Encore
Sans Soleil
Animal
Follow us on Twitter @LAWeeklyMusic, Katie Bain @bainofyrexstnce, and like us at LAWeeklyMusic.