TV on the Radio @ TV Eye, November 24th
The community band mission has changed, the community band focus remains the same (photos: Kate Glicksberg)
It should come as no surprise that among the highest compliments in my dated book of praise is “Community Band.” Over the past 22 years, TV on the Radio has been mine, the steady vessel through shit, glory and more shit. TVOTR was always reading the room, bringing the energy, and turning “important” to those of us not necessarily meeting in the bathroom after 9/11, but trying to comprehend the world we recognized we’d entered. The band’s members experienced the rise and falls of their own individual and communal lives right next to us, the DIY-creative wave of Bklyn gentrifiers, regarding them (in both classic New York and classic underground fashion) as one of us, always around. Attentiveness to the ups and downs—their own, the community’s, the planet’s—never stopped seeping into TVOTR’s music in thoughtful, non-obvious ways; and the work mostly kept coming, whether on-record or on-stage, where a once-ramshackle lo-fi band became majestic and feral. And though we’re a decade out from its last album, TVOTR’s importance to the community never waned. If anything, we’ve come to value them even more.
At first, the excitement of a tour around the anniversary reissue of its full-length debut, felt like a basic contemporary excuse. And quick sell-outs of the four nights at a big AEG-operated Manhattan ballroom made the run on tickets a little daunting, just another variant of the local culture-extraction economy. But events of the last few weeks have recharged the conversation about the future responsibilities of community artists right now, globally, nationally, and, yes, locally. (And, yes artists, we are sorry that we have to ask that you step up again…even if we do not actually know exactly what we’re asking for. That’s part of the gig.) On Friday came a first reminder-glimpse that, with TVOTR, who we’re dealing with is who we’ve always known we’ve been dealing with: The band posted about additional tickets becoming available only at a Manhattan box office, ensuring only locals who care enough to pay attention would snatch them up, not the bots; and Tunde showed up to greet fans who queue’d up. Then, on Sunday around 6p, TVOTR posted on its IG stories about doing a $5 show at TV Eye that night—and, if you’re around, you should come. Based on how the crowd spilled-over into the second room by the end of the night, it seems no one was turned away. The community lives and expands in ways you can’t, won’t—and shouldn't want to—stop.
And TVOTR is always quite aware of what the world is going through, how it turns in its inexorably fucked-up way. So, yes, the mission has changed, and the evening’s vibe, celebratory but overcast, reflected that, Tunde’s wordless singing, always a generational clarion call (“howling forever” as mass admission), has traded in youthful terror and middle-age recognition, for cusp-of-50 defiance (plus a great new vocal mic). But because the band’s outlook has always been of the The Long Now variety, it almost fits him better. All the while, the band around Tunde…oooooo-weeee. It may be sad to not see Sitek stalking stage-left, but Jaleel’s move into the front-line for a post-punk/-MBV/-SM guitar square-off with Kyp is a master-stroke. There’s a cornerstone sonic roar to the whole thing. Roofeo’s drums roll up against newcomer Jesske Hume’s bass, so the rhythm section slaps, funks, punk-percolates, and Smoota is now on-stage full-time with heavy synths and trombone blasts. Halfway back of the small room, where set-long swaying was a must and the pogo broke out during the obvious jump-alongs (I apologize to all the feet I stepped on), this sextet sounded like a huge organic machine, running on familiar but fully self-realized ideas of musical efficiency and grandeur.
In some ways, this has always been TVOTR’s MO: sooooo many people used to walk out of its early shows complaining that the group did not fit it into one sort of musical straitjacket or another which rock-critical cyclists had dreamed up for it, or that the group didn’t know how to do this or that well enough. Obviously, it’s been years since such complaints. But even as TV on the Radio grew more popular and its songs became broader in scope, it never left behind its own vision of self. Which informed our vision—and then vice-versa. So while I’m not sure we have time to repeat the cycle with anything near the same impact, I am happy they’ve returned—now, with “legend” status—to give it a try. If nothing else, parts of the community are around to appreciate the incredible effort, and to do our part. Whatever that might be.
(photos: Kate Glicksberg)
