Last night, the played host to two of the most ebullient and idiosyncratic acts in the game. Merrill Garbus’ headlined — a swirling blitzkrieg at her back. Garbus almost exclusively showcased, ahem, tunes from her just-released, “w h o k i l l,” backed by her effervescent bassist Nate Brenner and, often, a couple of saxophonists. The catch is that — despite Brenner’s pulsating backbone — Garbus needs none of them. She effortlessly loops her songs on a plain only occupied by other modern virtuosos like Julianna Barwick or Andrew Bird. Tune-Yards is a one woman parade of complexities.
Garbus began the show with vaguely Native American-like cries, a bang-up ringer for the pink feathers on her shoulders and ever-present warpaint on her face. “Gangsta” bordered on a cacophonous mess, but, somehow, she reigned in the corners. “Powa” was demonstratively rambunctious, with Garbus outpacing her ribald lyrics by singing — almost screaming — into the pick-ups of her ukulele.
Nothing was simple, here: The vocals were dexterous and the instrumentals reverberated with ferocity. This was a major concert. She got to the first single from the new one, “Bizness,” late in the set and, somehow, made it feel fresh and familiar — months after its release. Tune-Yards played “My Country” for an encore, Garbus beating upon the floor toms in front of her and singing like her life depended on it.
Opening for Tune-Yards on this leg is the highly underestimated and agile , so named because of Arone Dyer’s baritone ukulele (“buke”) and Aron Sanchez’s hybrid guitar-bass (“gass”). The duo’s first names aren’t its only familiarity; they downright bond onstage with a honed-in and precise mind-meld worthy of, say, No Age or, jeez, the White Stripes. Obviously Buke and Gass plays in a different stadium, but its debut work on “Riposte” is majestic. Live, Dyer’s extreme vocals are even more punctuated and undulating on a song like “Your Face Left Before You.” If you’re faced with this band, don’t leave.
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Colin St. John is a Denver-based writer and merrymaker. Follow him on and check out his .
