TV On The Radio July 20, 2011 at the Commodore Ballroom

Kyp Malone post costume change

Vancouver's infamous Commodore Ballroom was host to TV On The Radio for two consecutive nights  this week. I was lucky enough to be in attendance for the first show and it was awesome. I saw TVOTR for the first time in 2006 (again at the Commodore) and was totally blown away. Now, with two more albums of material (including Nine Types Of Light a Tasty Ears choice for Top 20 Albums of 2011 (so far)), they've done it again. They played the perfect set list of old and new including "Satellite", "The Blues From Down Here", "Dancing Choose", and "Will Do" to name a few. Dave Sitek added a little extra percussion along with sharing guitar duties with Kyp Malone who managed to make a costume change (just a hat but man...) near the end. Of course Tunde Adebimpe was dancing all over the stage hand wagging as only he can do. The whole band brought perhaps even more energy than the super stoked crowd. Part way through they slowed it down a bit with the beautiful "Keep Your Heart" before amping it up even further with four more tracks including the truly epic  "Staring at the Sun", "Repetition"*, "Wolf Like Me" trifecta that closed out the set (pre encore). After much hooting and hollering the boys came back out with the percussion heavy highlight "Method" before playing a couple of the previously mentioned tracks to send the crowd home completely satiated. What a show!

Tunde Adebimpe holding court in a wash of light

*(for those of you who don't know listen to "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" for a little context on this track)