LIVE: TV on the Radio Brings Healing to The Theatre at Ace Hotel (11/14/2015)

TV on the Radio
with Gallant
November 14, 2015
The Theatre at Ace Hotel
Los Angeles, CA

Saturday night’s TV On the Radio show—night fourteen of Red Bull Sound Select’s 30 Days in LA—should have been like any other concert: good music, great atmosphere, and not a worry in sight. But following Friday’s terrorist attacks that killed eighty-nine people at an Eagles of Death Metal concert in Paris, there was an uneasy tension for some as they entered The Theatre at Ace Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. Thankfully, Tunde Adebimpe and the rest of TVOTR were there to reassure the world that nothing is more powerful than music.

Any lingering sense of doom and gloom wasn’t enough to dim the room’s gleaming Art Deco glory. Opener Gallant (whom you might recognize from Sufjan Stevens’s instantly classic cover of “Hotline Bling”) was the perfect performer to loosen everyone up, leaping across the stage with his soaring soul falsetto and pristine white suit.

While the Theatre at Ace Hotel typically has a staid aura more suited for a night at the movies than a raucous act like TV On The Radio, the moment they launched into opener “Young Liars” all pretense and deference for seating arrangements went out the door as the audience rushed to the stage to dance and howl. For an hour or so, the caustic swell of the band echoed through the theatre’s gilded arches, a rush of positive energy powerful enough to wash away whatever fear or sadness people might have brought in with them.

A surprise appearance by Miguel (who duetted with Adebimpe on TVOTR’s “Seeds,” his own “Adorn,” and a cover of Can’s “Vitamin C”) ended the night on a surprisingly steamy tip—and had some people in the audience genuinely confused (“Is he touring with the band? Who is he? Does he have a last name?”).

Despite Miguel’s magnetic charisma, it was Adebimpe’s night. He was more than just a frontman; like some sort of mystic laying a healing hand on his audience (literally at times), he was there to remind us that as messed up as the world can be, in the end—as he puts it in TVOTR’s “Trouble”—“Everything’s gonna be okay.” FL

Set List

“Young Liars”
“Lazerray”
“Golden Age”
“Happy Idiot”
“Could You”
“Winter”
“Wolf Like Me”
“Trouble”
“Province”
“Forgotten”
“DLZ”
“Staring at the Sun”