Concert Review: Tune Yards Are Electro-Frida At Knockdown Center
Giving their final show, Tune Yards played Knockdown Center like they were saying goodbye to their family after Christmas. They had a great tour, and knew they would have another one, but, when they did, it would never be the same. Each tour brings a new energy and memory, and like each visit to your family, you go through different experiences. Thus, for this round, Tune Yards was its most riotous and socially affronting, like a Frida Kahlo painting.
When I reviewed Tune-yards’ Brooklyn Steel show and album, I can feel you creep into my private life, I marveled at their capacity to turn protest into an avant-garde rave. They took every social injustice that depresses people like, climate change, sexism, and racism, and made topics you don’t dread to discuss because they gave us a backdrop worth listening. Their final show felt like a culmination of the sonic discussion, of which Merrill Garbus acted like your favorite professor conducting her final art class.
Sonically and theatrically, Tune-yards is a marvel. I would not know where to put them because they are electronica meets Frida Kahlo. They aim to make songs such as, “Powa,” “My Country,” and “ABC 123” into vividly tragic self-portraits of good people getting crossed into the hairs of some political monsters. In a strange way, I kept on thinking of two particular paintings from Frida.
These paintings stood out as representations of Tune-Yards performance. They are eccentric, industrial, fantastical, bloody, and tragically mythical. From women’s rights to immigration reform, Tune- Yards unabashedly stand for all, but show that art is the most pulsing protest because it is can also be the most subtle. They give you a mindful rave, of which Garbus’ voice and presence is the drug you consume to powerfully reflect on your current pain. You are, literally, surrounded by verses and rhythms that either punch or protect you: similar to government. Thus, as someone who saw them previously, I felt like I had had a full-circle moment where I witnessed the starting and end growth of a tour asking its viewers/ the world to grow up. For More Information On Tune-Yards Click Here.
