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May 2, 2006

Make You Strong Just Like A Vitamin

Last Wednesday I was lucky enough to see Massive Attack live here in Seattle. They only did three shows in North America to promote their new double-disc best-of album Collected. I've been listening to Massive Attack since high school, and never once thought I would have a chance to see them live. And what a show it was.

The nice thing about seeing a band tour when they don't have a brand new album out, is that they don't have to sacrifice playing their best material in order to hawk their new songs. MA knew their audience and for an hour and a half made the crowd very happy with some old favourites.

They opened with a previously-unreleased track False Flags which is featured on Collected. The rest of the set was very Mezzanine-centric, with two songs from 100th Window, three from Blue Lines and one from Protection. I don't know the names of the two female guest vocalists they featured, but the one that sang on Unfinished Sympathy had an incredibly powerful voice. They even had Horace Andy there to serenade us with Angel and others. When 3D and Daddy G came out together and sang Karmakoma, I nearly wept (ok, not really, but it was incredible to hear that track live).

Throughout the show the band members (which consisted of the vocalists, a DJ, guitar player, bass player and drummer) were illuminated from behind by a series of coloured lights that pulsed and glowed with the music. During the performance of Safe From Harm, the lights displayed statistics of the war in Iraq, including US, UK and Iraqi death tolls and the total cost of the war in US dollars. Needless to say, MA disagrees with the war.

The show was at the fabulous Paramount Theatre, one of my favourite venues in Seattle. This was truly one of the best shows I've seen in a very long time, and certainly one of the best I've seen in Seattle. If any of you are planning to be in Europe this summer, I highly recommend you try to see them on tour. If not, maybe Collected will tide you over until their next album.

21:52 | Entertainment

Comments

you could read those stage lights? I totally couldn't--they were so spaced apart and blocked by the band members. it was a great show though, and an amazing venue!

Posted by: bonnie at May 5, 2006 12:48 PM

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