Yeah Yeah Yeahs : Seahawks Exhibition Center, Seattle: Tuesday September 16

Even the enormo-venues can't silence the raucous punk-clatter of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.



“If I go towards the light, it’s ‘splat’ for Karen – that’d be fucking awesome, right?” It might sound like Karen O is having some kind of metaphysical/spiritual crisis here tonight but really she’s just finding it a little difficult adjusting to life in the spotlight. Quite literally, in fact, because every time she approaches the edge of the stage she’s blinded by the glare of the lights. And right now she isn’t too keen on adding a pratfall into the photo pit into her repertoire of moves.


The singer’s reluctance to do a Wile E Coyote impression aside, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs make the transition from sweaty club to stuffy conference hall with remarkable ease. Even though everyone’s staring at their spacecase singer, ice-cool guitarist Nick Zinner and bespectacled drummer Brian Chase, warrant just as much credit, if not attention. We guess that serves ‘em both right for wearing black and looking like they work in accounts rather than strapping on a pair of sparkly lilac hot-pants and getting jiggy with the microphone stand. Yet it's the guitar and drum duo who take that occasionally thin, transistor radio sound – a tinny noise which can veer dangerously towards shrill and annoying - and transform it into something that can fill this cavernous hall.



Karen is on top form as well, exaggeratedly prancing and preening her way across the stage as she shrieks and coos through 'Man’, 'Rich' and a moshpit-awakening ’Date With A Night'. Her jelly legs routine sends the teenage boys down the front all aflutter during 'Pin' while the parents at the back are left similarly , ahem, open-mouthed themselves when she deepthroats the microphone during 'Black Tongue', grunting like a classy porn veteran. In contrast she then dedicates a tender 'Maps' to “anyone who is in love” and sings gently, her back turned to the audience. It’s as if she’s imagining herself all alone and not in the company of several thousand people. When she turns round she almost looks surprised to see them all still there. She’ll get used to it.