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Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Keeping it cool
April 10, 2006 6:21:46 PM

GLASS WALL: It took a while, but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs finally broke out of the trophy case and connected.Maybe it was the heavy-breathing fog machine conjuring up a pre-smoking-ban NYC, but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Orpheum last Friday night made me nostalgic for when the triple-Ys came of age in the early double-0sbefore yindies and yupsters and Grups and all that other Park Slopian malarky. It’s not that I don’t like the emotional density ofShow Your Bones (Interscope), but Karen O recently told the New Yorker, “We’re trying to make you feel a little bit cooler than you might actually be.” Fever To Tell instilled NYC-styled confidence better than Bolivian marching powder, but the meditative vulnerability of Show Your Bones turns that feigned assurance to mere dust.

Karen O may have pulled a Frankie and gone to Hollywood, but even with the less brash songs and the mushroom-cap bowl cut à la Dorothy Hamill, she’s still a sexy rock-and-roll creature with drum-majorette moves, mommy-long legs, and a neckless giraffe’s gait. Entering amid the intro throb of “Cheated Hearts,” the YYYs initially seemed detached, like they’d been prematurely transplanted to a Hard Rock Café trophy case. But once Karen O got past the “ooh-ooh” triplets of “Gold Lion” and stuck out herFever-ish “Black Tongue,” the glass shattered and we were all one in the same.

For the four-song encore, guitarist Nick ZinnerEdward Scissorhands of the Lower East Sidecame out and mumbled into the microphone guiltily, “This is my hometown.” (He’s from Sharon.) His Jersey Girl partner, who hadn’t yet addressed the crowd, prefaced their star-making song “Maps” by individually dedicating it to the band members’ romantic loves. (No word of Spike Jonze’s successor — Karen O’s love was us .) Then the audience-applause-selected “Date with a Night” segued into “Warrior,” followed by the sobering abyss of “Modern Romance.” Then the lights went up. Everyone seemed a little less cool.

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