KRISTEENYOUNG at the Palladium: You Don’t Know What You Are Dealing With

Night II (Friday)
05 October 2007


KRISTEENYOUNG bow down to gods unfamiliar to most of us, so comfortable with our largely pre-packaged, pre-determined days and ways. Playing “London Cry” tonight, from their most recent album, “The Orphans,” Young curtsied from behind her keyboard. Jeff, with perpetually bowed head, seems always to pound the drums in the service of a force much greater than himself. I think that Young and White, both partially of Native American descent, express this lineage every night, in paying reverence to their instruments, and to one another. A sense of meticulous craftsmanship pervades every aspect of their performance.

During “9,” singing from center stage, Kristeen swept the microphone stand into her grip, pulling the top of it right into her gut. Piercing herself, as she lowered her torso in a contraction, I realized that Young falls on her sword everyday spreading the beauty and magic of her gospel.

Tonight, I was particularly struck by Young’s signature method of delivering lyrics. In Young’s mouth words become rubber bands that can be pulled forever and stretched out into their original shape as pure sound. I think that this poetic playfulness with words, and attentiveness to the inherent beauty of language align Young with the likes of Patti Smith. Or to avoid another token comparison to female rock icons (though this one's certainly more appropriate than the sloppy slew of others usually made,) her way of working words into original creations all her own might claim modernist writer, James Joyce as a predecessor. Much as Joyce did in Finnegan’s Wake, Young pushes language, sound (and the audience) past their breaking points. Past this precarious point lies, as ever and always, the possibility for liberation—certainly rock ‘n’ roll’s original and most potent promise.

“Kill the Father” certainly stands out as a modernist manifesto, echoing Ezra Pound’s simple but seminal directive to continuously “Make it new.” Kristeen threw her head back with abandon, as she pushed forward the driving notes of a song headed fearlessly for the future. “Kill the Father” stresses the importance and responsibility of contemporary artists to consciously absorb, and intimately know, their influences — and then to bravely let them go. Kristeen sang:

“This is our stage now.
What do we say now?
Get off my stage.
I’ll take it from here.
There’s work to be done now."

And with her loyal foil fighting selflessly at her side she took that small sliver of stage all the way. A band as avant-garde as this takes over slowly, one stage at a time — injecting a sharp steady shot of iconoclasm straight into the heart of the mainstream American music industry, still yet to embrace them.

Setlist:
Stop Thinking/You Must Love Me/9/Everybody Wants Me To Cry/London Cry/Kill the Father/Halfway Across the Atlantic Ocean/Mixed Kids/This Is the Dawn of My D-Day

Wardrobe:
Kristeen: High-waisted black Marlena Dietrich pants, with cropped fitted tuxedo-esque jacket, and cascading ruffled collar.
Jeff: Fitted vest with patterned tie over short-sleeved work shirt.