At twenty minutes past Caribou's call time, you could tell the crowd of chic-yet-skewing-nerdy twenty-somethings were growing a bit restless. In addition, through some casual eavesdropping, you could get a sense that the audience knew Dr. Snaith's quirky indi-tronica intimately, but had not yet seen the likes of him on-stage before. As such, I'm willing to bet that few people had any notion of what awaited them in the coming minutes. The curtains rose to reveal no grand setup, no crazy pyrotechnics - just four plain-clothed men, a modest amount of instruments and a distant projector draping them in kaleidoscope-esqe color. From the sight of it all, you wouldn't expect Caribou to bring much heat and rock it out, but rock it out they did.
With the flick of his Korg's on-switch, the ninety minute set began. First up was a fairly tight version of "Kaili." Though, it wasn't until they transitioned into "Leave House" that the Music Box really started to bounce. Listening to Caribou's studio albums, which are so thoughtfully produced, it's hard to imagine them going much farther out of a song's relative domain. On the contrary, live, Caribou is a whole different beast. Songs like "Leave House" that seem tame on the album come to life and compel your feet to dance. It was refreshing to see such a large amount of musical experimentation going on while at the same time having the entire band be in-sync with whatever and wherever Snaith chose to explore. For those of you wondering what the rest of the setlist was like, there were a couple nods to older works, most notably a fine rendition of "Melody Day," but, all in all, this was largely a Swim affair.
As the night wore on, two things completely took me by surprise. First was Caribou's drummer Brad Weber. This man, if you could even call him that as he looked like some cross between Frankenstein and Murdoc Niccals from the Gorillaz, was so intense that I thought he was going to rampage the stage with his drumsticks at any moment. Thankfully, he only rampaged his drum set and impressively rivaled Snaith in intensity and musical exploration. Typically drummers are given a back seat on stage but Snaith chose to put him right next to him instead. I must say, good choice.
The second surprise was their epic encore. Of all the songs on Swim, there's one in particular that has stood out as a personal favorite of mine, and that has to be "Sun." "Sun" has all the classical elements that make Caribou's music so unique: precise beats, genre-bending nostalgia, and sublime styling. Caribou returned to the stage and closed the house with a solid fifteen-minute musical thesis that I don't think anyone anticipated. Snaith used two microphones to expertly echo the song's lone lyric and then went on his merry way, bobbing and weaving into every nook and cranny that "Sun" had to offer. "Sun!!!" exclaimed the girls in front me, as they began to bop up and down to the waves of UV rays emanating from the stage. Sun! indeed.
