Whelan’s
JUDGING FROM the nightmare-to-type moniker tUnE-yArDs, Merrill Garbus always does things differently. To say the multi-instrumentalist ex-puppeteer is a one-off is an extreme understatement – not just vocally and musically, but in how she makes music on stage. Her 2010 album, BiRd-BrAiNs, was recorded on a digital recorder and that DIY energy floods her live show.
Kicking off with live favourite Do You Want To Live?Garbus slams a snare drum and recites the rhetorical chorus, pointing her drumstick accusingly at us.
Wearing a pink feather boa and with black swirls painted on her face, she resembles a tribal gorgon, ululating and busting our collective chops.
Songs begin with a snap of drumstick on drum rims or mic stands, or with Garbus singing into several microphones before hitting the loop pedals. Accompanied by a bass player and two saxophonists, it’s a percussive wall of sound.
During Gangsta,the first of many tracks from her current brilliant album, Whokill, she pogos to the beat, encouraging the audience to do likewise. But the linchpin is that voice, belonging to a white girl but predicated on so much black influence – soul, hip-hop, African rhythms. When Powa begins, everyone waits to see if she'll hit the big stratospheric note (she does, without blinking) and the crowd shriek their gratitude.
Garbus giggles and tells us she's been looking forward to Dublin for two months. Not as much as we've been looking forward to her – at tUnE-yArDs' last Whelan's gig the balcony wasn't open. This time it was sold out. Next time (thanks Jaws) you're gonna need a bigger venue.
