Last night was one of those shows where I was going in pretty blind. I had heard Miike Snow’s name before and knew some of their hits that had been on the radio but that’s where my knowledge ended. With music that sometimes leans towards the side of rock but, at other times, leans towards the electro-pop scene, I was excited to see what one of their live shows would be like.
Opening up the show was Klangstof from Amsterdam. With an atmospheric sound that, at times, was calming enough to put you to sleep but swelled into a giant wave of sound at other times, they were the perfect opening act for Monday night’s show. It seemed to take the crowd a little bit of time to warm up to Klangstof but it was clear that there were members of the audience that had been looking forward to seeing them. I was shocked to see so many people singing along to the minimalistic lyrics that were paired with the spacey instrumentation. Even though lyrics seemed to be a bit sparse throughout the set and that the music seemed to be more waves of sound than a head on blast of music, there was an undeniable sense of energy that kept the set feeling exciting and had me trying to guess what was going to happen next.
Hailing from Stockholm Sweden, Miike Snow has been a force to be reckoned with lately. As I stood there watching the band on stage, I started to realize that I knew far more songs than I had previously that I would. I was a little surprised when the group started playing “Genghis Khan” towards the beginning of their set because, in my mind, that was their biggest radio hit but, as the set went on, I realized that the whole set was full of radio hits. As I mentioned, the band’s music seems to bridge the gap between rock and electro-pop music. I had a feeling that their live show would lean more towards the rave side of things with their driving drum beats and electronic sounds. That’s exactly how the live atmosphere ended up being. The nearly sold out crowd was packed into the floor of the venue and were constantly bouncing up and down with their arms in the air. The flashing lights both on the stage and over the crowd definitely gave the show a more rave-y feel to it but I wouldn’t go so far as to call the show a rave. Miike Snow’s music definitely focused on electronic sounds but the live drumset and the piano that frontman Andrew Wyatt found himself behind for majority of the show really added an element to the music that seems to get lost in the recordings. It made the music come to life in a way that was a pleasant surprise. The crowd was just as relentless as the constant bass beats that vibrated throughout the venue. You could feel the heat radiating from the energetic audience as they sang their way through the set. Song after song, the crowd seemed to be feeding off the energy that flooded off the stage. All of the energy culminated into a super fun atmosphere that was hard to leave as the night ended.
