Recap Yeah Yeah Yeahs at The Rave/Eagles Ballroom

Much has been made about Yeah Yeah Yeahs making a musical overhaul on its latest album. But the so-called electronica influence on It’s Blitz! is less a hostile takeover than simply the addition of a synthesizer. The scrappiness, the intensity, and the attitude of Yeah Yeah Yeahs remained intact Sunday night at The Rave/Eagles Ballroom, though the band’s fleshed-out sound did raise once concern: How can a band known for its ability to do a lot with a little fit more into its live performance?

For Yeah Yeah Yeahs, it was a matter of moving forward without dwelling too much on its previous incarnation. Additional musicians hid behind a smoky haze, but the band’s sidekicks didn’t distract from the delivery of songs that, while lacking studio polish, nevertheless got their point across and had the whole crowd bouncing. New songs like “Dull Life” elicited nearly as much enthusiasm as older tracks like the Show Your Bones’ stand-out “Honeybear.”

While some of the band’s subtler material suffered in a live setting—particularly the jangly “Turn Into”—the more rocking Fever To Tell songs were right at home in front of an audience. Karen O—sporting a single neon pink glove—fed off the crowd’s obvious adoration, frequently bantering between songs and shouting out to the ladies and Milwaukee in general with the same leonine voice that makes her performances almost feral. Instead of expending energy during the set, she seemed to create it, hopping around the stage like a cracked-out lab rabbit late into the show. In stark contrast, Brian Chase’s methodical, almost Zen-like drumming and Nick Zinner’s concentrated, convulsing guitar provided the necessary balance to Karen’s banshee wails and water spitting antics.

Praising the crowd for being “fucking awesome” during a concert almost guarantees an encore, so it was no surprise that the trio returned after their first goodbyes, after a feverish audience chanted “Yeah Yeah Yeah”—a band name born to be chanted—over and over.  Following a spastic performance of “Y Control,” Karen seemed visibly amused by the lone crowd surfer of the night riding the hand waves to the mellow “Maps.”  She capped off the night with “Date With The Night,” infusing it with enough orgasmic overtones to get at least half the audience laid afterward.