M.I.A. WTF?
Posted on 25. Jul, 2010 by Karri Wells in Music
For months I had been anticipating my first trip to Governors Island for Hard NYC. I’d always wanted to see M.I.A. live and this was finally my chance. I was looking forward to dancing my face off.
By the time we got into the venue we’d been through security not once, but twice and had missed seeing Rye Rye. Needless to say all of us were thoroughly annoyed and ready for an adult beverage. We caught the last half of Skream and Benga which was excellent except for the MC. It seemed unnecessary that he kept running around the stage asking the crowd ‘where his monkeys were at’.
Next up was Brooklyn based Sleigh Bells. I’ve had ‘Treats’ on heavy rotation the past few weeks and was eager to see what they’d sound like live. The guitar was more pronounced and her voice a little more aggressive but it all worked well and the crowd really seemed to be into it.
Die Antwoord took the stage next. I knew little about these guys except that they were from South Africa. They were incredibly entertaining. The group is comprised of DJ Hi-Tex, Ninja who rocked some sweet Pink Floyd boxers, and Yo-Landi, a pint size chick with a wicked mullet. I felt like I was watching something that had been created by Ali G. They definitely were the highlight of the night.
At this point it was late, I was hot, I had caveman feet and all of the tall men at the show decided that the best place for them to stand was directly in front of my friend Katie and I who are both vertically challenged.
I’m pretty sure at this point an M.I.A. chant was covertly broadcast over the sound system in hopes to get the crowd jacked up, but nobody joined in. A bunch of people wearing outfits trimmed in what appeared to be glow necklaces meandered on stage and finally M.I.A. started her set. I was excited, this was the moment we’d been waiting for.
After the first song I noticed nobody was dancing, and we were all looking around at each other wondering what was happening. Was this REALLY what we’d been waiting to see all day? We moved to the back of the crowd hoping that the sound would get better, blaming our close proximity to the speakers as the reason for why things didn’t sound as great as we’d expected. Moving locations didn’t help, it was still pretty awful. After the third song, we, along with hundreds of others , started making our way back to the ferries.
M.I.A. has gotten a lot of negative press lately for various reasons, and I was hoping that this show would prove me wrong. Maybe she had a bad night, maybe somebody behind the sound board was to blame, or maybe she really just isn’t really that great.
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