Me and my friend Mainga expected a standard concert (opening with a few tracks from the new album, some of their hits sprinkled in and with some fan favourites for the encore), though we got something very different. The audio clip is our immediate reaction after leaving the Roundhouse.
They opened with “A Cherry on Top”, a song from their new album. It was a misty dry-ice set with Olef and Karin (the Knife) plus about seven people dressed in druid cloaks (Sorkklubben). Looking back on it, the whole thing was very Spinal Tap.
It took me a while to realise that the giant oversized toy-like looking instruments they played (a large paper mache harp and a 12 foot slide-guitar among others) weren't actually real. They were in fact props.
After first track, they lost the druid cloaks to reveal simmering jumpsuits. They dropped the fake instruments, instead proceeding to dance and mime to a backing track. All pretence of a musical performance was dropped as various members of the dance troupe took turns in miming the songs. There were remarks that it was a “hipster Pan’s People” and “Riverdancing in sparkly jumpsuits”, which are descriptions that I can’t entirely disagree with. In many ways it stopped being a concert and instead became a stage musical that featured songs by the Knife.
Two things made it worthwhile. First, the on stage visuals were mostly interesting and inventive – an amazing piece which stood out was a performance of ‘Got 2 Let U’, where a video of Karin in a fake beard mouthing to the song was projected the alongside a lip-synching male dancer (err… you sort of had to be there).
Secondly, it was a performance with a cheeky point. It was a deliberate challenge to what an audience would accept as a band performance. It questioned the connection between the visual performance and the music that was played. It gradually pushed the acceptability of what a band could get away with; first with the band not playing instruments, then by them not singing and then by everyone leaving the stage at one point to allow ‘Full of Fire’ to play in its near entirety accompanied only by a techno-rave light show.
There was a delightful shock factor at the sheer audacity of essentially playing a CD for fans who expected a standard concert. Though, it made me wonder if it was substantially different from using a sequencer or DJ-set. It made the audience contemplate how they wanted to have the music reproduced. It is clear that no fans wanted to see the Knife because of Karin and Olef’s dance moves. Given that the majority of the performance was carried out by the Sorkklubben dancers, the night could have been substantively the same if Karin and Olef didn’t turn up.
It was food for thought… but in many ways that is not why I wanted to see The Knife (I was looking forward to busting a move to a bass-heavy rendition of We Share Our Mother’s Health, with Karin singing at a mic and Olef looking moody behind a sampler). I saw a previous live performance in youtube of 'Heartbeats' and something along these lines would have been more welcome.
The Knife's performance at the Roundhouse was more interesting than it was entertaining. I’ll certainly be pondering about this gig for a while to come… but frankly I was happiest at the end, when Karin sang a reworked ‘Silent Shout’ to a dazzling light show. Simple, live and melodic.
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