The Knife: Shaking the Habitual LIVE!!!

Evan Mckay

Last Monday my favorite band in the whole world came to Boston House of Blues. The Knife. The last time they toured was in 2006 with the "Silent Shout" tour. Sadly I was too much of a n00b to be able to afford to go to NYC to see them. This time however was not the case! The very second I heard tickets were on sale I bought the maximum amount of 4 and I made it! I was not disapointed!

If you have not heard their new album, "Shaking the Habitual", you should. It is definitely shaking the aforementioned habitual. The Knife has never been one to keep the sound the same between albums and this one is no different. The song lengths vary from :37 to 19:02. There is some noise, some pop, and a whole slew of different instruments, producing sounds I lack the technical know-how to describe. The sounds are big, crazy, and awesome. You will dance. You will cry. You will feel weird. All the things we have come to expect from a "The Knife" album and then some. 

Keeping the above description in mind, this show was an insane explosion of lights, vocals dancing and color. I have did not know there were light rigs capable of moving as fast as these one were. The lasers were ripping around the House of Blues like covenant firefight! Shit was intense! The Knife, which is typically 2 members (Olof and his sister Karin), were joined by a cast of musicians and dancers that totaled somewhere around 15. Clad in neon blue, green, and purple shimmering rayon jumpsuits and glittering face paint akin to a flamboyant Ultimate Warrior; the cast was jumping, spinning dancing and producing some amazing inspired live versions of these great album tracks. A run-on sentence is probably the only way to describe this show, truly it was awe-inspiring. This is nothing to speak of the instruments, which where in themselves amazing. One was an 8 foot long hexagonal tube the grew in diameter on the other end. It was stringed with pickups and if rotated had electronic drum pads on another side. There was a DJ booth and an electronic drum set that had at least 30 different pads with attached Glockenspiel bells, laser-cut neon plastic custom percussion rattles that resembled giant cotton candy wands and a 9 ft plastic tube played by 3 musicians at once. Needless to say, shit was insane!

This show was truly one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life. It was non-stop dance intensity from start to finish. The only real downside was that some of the tracks were studio recorded playbacks for the big dance numbers. That totally did not matter while you were there, though. The lights and sounds were just amazing. I implore you, if you have any chance at all of seeing this tour, or any tour with The Knife, please please please attend!