Thursday night at Webster Hall was a lesson in redemption, a reminder that careers are never over, only dormant. The headlining pop stars, Robyn and Kelis, are no strangers to struggles; in the past decade both singers have been made, broken, and left for dead. This year, this tour, this night, though, the pair managed to obliterate those pasts. Thursday night was a celebration of newfound exuberance and love of the craft, and the crowd was completely on board for the ride.
The leading ladies couldn’t have chosen a better lead-in than Dan Black, a charming Brit who was captivating enough to wow us earlier this year as the headliner at a sold out Mercury Lounge gig. Opening this time around, Black wasn’t playing to a packed house. He wasn’t shaken by it, though. “We’ll take quality over quantity any day,” he told the assembled crowd.
Black had no trouble getting that crowd to move, busting through a set packed with dance jams. He didn’t dawdle between tunes, either, moving from one to the next with a contagious energy. “I don’t have much time,” he said, “so I’m just gonna move on fucking fast.” Starting his set with the crescendo of “Pump My Pumps,” Black played through most of his debut album, ((UN)), taking advantage of Webster Hall’s massive bass. Guitarist Nick Peill dialed it up as well, letting some crunch creep into his swirling guitars. The result was huge and beautiful, an organic improvement on Dan’s already sweet synthetic sound.
Next to grace the stage was Kelis, dressed in a skin-tight blue one-piece and looking every bit the type of vixen whose milkshake would bring boys to the yard. Musically, though, Kelis went far beyond that pop hit – gem though it may be. Since the birth of her first child just over a year ago (I can’t believe it either) Kelis has completely re-invented herself. No longer a siren in the R&B scene, although aspects of that genre still pervade her work, Kelis has seen the beauty of pop. The dance party that followed her onto the stage was evidence in favor of her success.
Kelis’ opening set the tone. Emerging to the sound of a beating heart, Kelis led the audience in a Pledge of Allegiance call and response. “I will not stare,” went one section, “I will not judge.” Then the emphatically repeated refrain: “Because we control the dance floor.” Control the dance floor she did, leading the frantic crowd in an hour-long dance party that ran the gamut from “Milkshake” to new single “A Cappella,” including snippets and samples ranging from Ol’ Dirty Bastard to Major Lazer’s “Pon De Floor.”
It was a thrilling set, made all the more joyful by the ever-present smile on Kelis’ face. This was a celebration of a performer who survived artistic pigeonholing, stepped out on her own, and found a groove that seems like it was created with her in mind. Looking around, it was hard to ignore the strange feeling that the crowd was simultaneously proud and impressed by Kelis. By the time she left the stage, the temperature in Webster Hall was a good twenty degrees warmer.
If Kelis heated the room, Robyn blew it up. The crowd was raring to go by the time the diminutive Swedish popstar hit the stage, and as the opening notes of “Fembot” burst forth from the speakers the room absolutely exploded. Spunky and frenetic on-stage, Robyn proved capable of handling the crowd’s rabid energy, channeling it into a dancing pit that tested the resilience of Webster Hall’s floor. Throughout her set – which was flecked with pop, reggae, dubstep, and electronica – she danced around the stage, a mixture of calisthenics and sensuality. Like her resurgent career, Robyn is enigmatic to watch; she’s also pretty bloody awesome.
Robyn’s set was highlighted by hits from her latest Body Talk, Pt. 1, mixed in with selections from earlier albums. “Cobrastyle,” the hit from her 2005 self-titled release, was a particular treat. The night reached its pinnacle on one of the last songs of the evening, though, as Robyn played Body Talk, Pt. 1’s lead track. Eschewing the microphone for the first half of the track, she danced around the stage as a recording listed off the myriad of things that are killing her (drinking, smoking, diet, heels, shopping, ego, etc.). When she finally got back to the microphone, it was superfluous – the shouting crowd overpowered her on the track’s title chorus, “Don’t fucking tell me what to do!”
It was a fitting mantra for the entire concert, a sentiment clearly shared by the co-headliners. Mixing independent spirits with creative control, both Robyn and Kelis have taken the reins on their careers and steered them toward new dimensions of pop stardom. Try as you might, you can’t tell them what to do. There was a time when they would have listened, but that’s long in the past – they were destined to break free and do their own thing. They have, and it’s divine.
