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Review Thu May 19 2011
Review: The Airborne Toxic Event @ The Metro
"You know, when I wrote that I really meant it," remarked The Airborne Toxic Event's frontman Mikel Jollett after singing the opening lines to "Happiness Is Overrated" ("And speaking of little miss Catherine. I feel swell, oh well...") during last night's performance, the first of a two-night residency at the Metro. Maybe that's what happens when two (plus) years and a mountain of surpassed expectations separates a songwriter from his earliest songs. Maybe the songs begin to feel less like intimate artistic expressions and more like the products of just another performance.
Last night The Airborne Toxic Event played a perfectly executed 18-song set...but unfortunately that's about all they did. It wasn't until the second to last song of the encore performance, the whimsical "Missy" off the band's self-titled debut, that The Airborne Toxic Event chose to incorporate any instrumental elaborations or even decided to appear passionate about the words and sounds pouring through the speakers. For a lyricist known for his tendency to dissect singular moments down to their most intimate qualities, Jollett let songs like the rambunctious "Doesn't Mean A Thing" come and go without as much as a pang of uniquely personal emotion in his voice.
It wasn't until mid-set that I sadly realized what I was watching: a musical performance for an audience with no real musical knowledge or capacity. This was a show for the folks who attend two or three concerts a year and whose idea of a "local show" involves Wilco and the UIC Pavilion. I'm certainly not dismissing the musical talents of The Airborne Toxic Event nor ignoring the undeniable fact that there were surely loads of genuine music enthusiasts present last night, but the majority of the set was executed in a way that catered to the other half of the crowd. Musical breakdowns were drowned out by orchestrated hand claps, solos were prodded and acknowledged instead of organically integrated and the audience was--all too willingly--persuaded to play the senseless "We're-going-to-split-the-venue-down-the-middle-and-see-which-side-screams-louder" game.
It's the same type of forced energy that's present on the band's newest album, All At Once. The album is solid, but gives the listener nothing that wasn't already present on their debut. I mean, am I the only one who refuses to refer to "Half Of Something Else" as anything but, "Sometime Around Midnight, Pt. II"? It feels as though The Airborne Toxic Event has felt the effects of the spotlight during the past two years of the band's growing success and are intent with making a spectacle of themselves, their performance and the music itself so as to remain in its glow.
"Dude, that's such a rockstar move," the once frat-boy in front of me exclaimed as Jollett ascended the speaker tower and proceeded to sing the entirety of "Something New" from atop the Metro's speakers. Well yes, it would have been if it wasn't such a conscious attempt to act like a rockstar.
As a huge fan of The Airborne Toxic Event's first album and a moderate fan of its recent sophomore release, I'm still trying to decide if I truly enjoyed last night's show or not. Again, this was not a bad performance by any means. The songs, new and old, sounded great and Jollett's voice was spot-on all night long. But it seemed that that's all last night was: a performance. The song's appeared to lack any personal connection to the musicians.
Here's to hoping for a little more ingenuity and genuine energy tonight for round two. As for me, I'll skip the live show and stick to the CD.
rutheford / May 19, 2011 6:57 PM
Wow, pretentious much?