Last night I went and I saw Ok Go play Terminal 5. For all of you who have been living under a rock the last five years Ok Go became You Tube stars in 2006 due to the video for their song “Here it Goes Again” which featured the band doing a choreographed dance routine on treadmills.
Ok Go has been one of the few bands that has been pretty outspoken and pretty smart with the use of social technology (i.e. YouTube, texting, etc) to promote their music. With their smarts when it comes to technology, their clever videos and their catchy songs I find it so hard to dislike Ok Go and seeing them live, only solidified my love for the band.
Their performance last night was in one word, awesome. Tight and solid, the songs performed went from simple indie rock to acoustic folk to Prince like funk with the most amazing precision. Their performance included what has become quintessential of Ok Go, captivating accouterments like last night’s song playing the handbells. The band also premiered the 3-D video for their song “White Knuckles” which besides the band, featured dogs and a goat.
In this day and age of shoegazing indie rock, where bands look as if they would rather be some place else rather then on stage, it was refreshing to see a really good band look as if they were genuinely having fun not only on stage but with the crowd!
Photo courtesy of Ok Go
I got sucked into the OkGo phenomenon on You Tube, but wasn’t sure if a live concert would meet my expectations.
The concert exceeded my expectations. No band has played music with such attention to the visual experience, since The Talking Heads, and OkGo modernized it with technology that David Byrne never had access to:
3-D video, lipstick cameras in the mikes projected on a big screen behind them, thumb drives available at the merchandise stand with video of the concert WE JUST SAW, and the offer to have a song sent to your e-mail if you texted it to them?
OkGo rocks, and The Music Slut blogger we met at the bar also rocked!