It's true.
Kimbra has more than half a song in spite of what many of you clowns may believe.
Not only does she have more than half a song (as featured on Goyte's one-"hit" wonder song that was all the rage this year), but her album is 50 times better than that of the aforementioned Goyte.
It's an album that's actually 50 times better than most but I'll leave the gushing for the end of year review.
Thus, even threatening me with housing her concert at Webster Hall could not deter me. Webster Hall's not that awful and it certainly is no Terminal 5 which I would have more than likely passed up.
But with TD5, Active Goat T., Alex and H1 in tow, I'm incredibly happy that TD5 and I did not pass up the opportunity to see the fantastic Kimbra.
We began the evening at Kenkas (sorry B.!) and ate a bunch of our favourites but nothing spectacularly strange as with past ventures being that Beetchie was not with me. I don't think that gives me an excuse for going there without her and I won't tell her that the food was really good that night.
Especially our awesome fries which is fast becoming the only place to eat fries.
After a satisfying meal (and some trauma to the Active Goat's fragile, young mind of the aesthetics on display at Kenkas), we traipsed on over to Webster Hall for the best $20 concert I've ever attended. In fact, I knew the evening could be nothing but awesome considering that's the cheapest I've ever paid for a concert.
That alone is amazing in itself.
Ushered upstairs, we were met with the sounds of opener The Step Kids.
We've seen some pretty horrendous openers in our time but The Step Kids should not be lumped with the lowest of the low. They were more middle ground, I suppose. Musically, they sounded pretty good but they were a bit too much funk and too much on a 70's vibe for my taste. I mean, what business did these white boys from Connecticut have being so psychedelic, funk?! It was funny save the forced falsetto of one of the vocalists ever so often. That was done too much and everything just sort of blended into one song.
They did have an awesome little stage show though with the lights...
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| ...which you cannot really tell from this picture. You can be assured that it was cool though. |
After exiting stage right, and then brushing past us in the crowd (yeah, the drummer with some girl squeezed his way past us after their set was over), we had a little bit of wait while Kimbra's roadies set up her stage. It was the point when her second microphone stand was set up complete with her boo boo tambourine that TD5, H1 and I lost it.
Some smoke machines later, a dimming of the lights and the extended opener version of "Limbo" playing over the loud speakers that things got under way.
It was quite the thrilling little builder of anticipation...I know I was excited as it's one of my favourite tracks.
There were lots of purple lights and soon, Kimbra came dancing out and straight into "Limbo", and she was dressed in an outfit that many considered doing for Halloween. I loved its weirdness and the blast of multiple colours that Kimbra came dolled up in. Soon, H1 dubbed the giant purple thing draped over her shoulders as "The Magical Frock" and so it shall be remembered from this day forward.
Our time spent with Kimbra felt incredibly short even though she played just about every song from her album but I guess time flies when you're having fun, which is exactly what we did. We danced, yelled, screamed, cheered and marveled at Kimbra's genuinely excited demeanour. The girl was so happy, it was too cute for words.
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| Scary at times, too. |
To recap as we always do, here are the highlights and lowlamps -
The Lowlamps
1. I was expecting hipsters. Hipsters are lowlamps for sure but what I was not expecting was probably one of the rudest crowd I have ever encountered. I don't know what the fans could be categorized as but they were not hipsters. Hipsters, at the very least, are polite and tend to stand around not doing much. The jerks at this concert were pushing their way to the front, cutting off a lot of us and standing way too close to us and others in an attempt to get up to the front. These people exist at all concerts but it was particular horrendous this night.
2. The Great Herding of Webster Hall. Marketing or herding, it was awful. After Kimbra was done, there was a herding situation of epic proportions that had us going down flights of stairs and into a section for "more live music", the bar area (in which we almost lost TD5 because he was very tempted to sit down and have one) and an eventual street escape. It was ingenious and pure evil at the same time.
The Highlights
1. Our girl, Kimbra! Her vocal range is nothing short of spectacular. She sounded great live and even better than on disc (if even possible!) changing up songs just enough to be interesting and not jarring. Her personality on stage was playful, joyous and again, she was just so darn cute.
I think it's safe to say that TD5, H1 and I can highly recommend seeing her live if anyone is afforded the opportunity. I really do hope this girl is going to get a lot more exposure than she is being given.
2. Webster Hall's Sound System. Everything sounded so incredibly awesome which H1 rightly pointed out at some point during the evening. It was clear, and fantabulous.
3. Two Microphones? Kimbra's vocal prowess is so intense that the girl needs two microphones to sing with. Two. At the same time. It's a spectacle. I say vocal prowess, while others might say she's a wide-mouthed frog. Same difference?
4. That outfit. The purple Magical Frock that completed the outfit was just dynamite. It wouldn't be a Kimbra concert without some weirdness/artistic madness and insane hand gestures on her part. At one point the Magical Frock got away from her shoulders which she mentioned too as "having never happened to her before...must be New York".
5. "Settle Down". Apparently, we weren't playing along. By "we" I meant the fools in the crowd. We were supposed to be singing along and we didn't (TD5, H1 and I did) but no. Anyway, she restarted it and the entire performance was the best.
The Kimbra at Webster Hall on October 19, 2012 Set List:
1. Limbo
2. Posse
3. Good Intent
4. Plain Gold Ring
5. Two Way Street
6. Marigold
7. Old Flame
8. Warrior
9. Something in the Way You Are
10. Settle Down
11. Cameo Lover
12. Come Into My Head
Encore:
13. Withdraw
14. Call Me
As you can see from the set list, I got the better song. Or rather, we had never heard that song before but it was quite the danceable fun song that I cannot wait to get on a follow up cd or something. I managed to get the better song over H1's. Heh. I think I got choked for that at some point.
In closing, (I don't know why my blog post just got messed up - unrelated but I cannot seem to fix it) it was a great night with lots of fun with friends and to Kimbra: Our hearts are already open.
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