Recap Santigold at First Avenue

Santigold hit the stage at First Avenue on Thursday like the second coming of Morris Day & The Time. From the gold scrawl on her Xanadu-esque outfit to the gold lines crisscrossing the black MC Hammer pants of her robotic backup singers/dancers, there was an aura of plastic glamour that was only missing someone to bring a mirror up onstage.

That black-and-gold color scheme is a fitting parallel for her sound, which is built like a kid’s collage: the musical equivalent of carefully selected bits glued onto neon construction paper and adorned with glitter and glossy magazine cutouts. A pretty serious musical approach belies that sparkly shine, though. Rolling Stone described her with a mathematical formula, multiplying M.I.A. by Karen O and adding the ’80s, but that implies she’s somehow a blend of these elements, when instead she resists this smooth mixing. She can jam the driving but melancholy “Lights Out” right up against the dancehall groove of “Shove It” and make it work just because she thinks it should.

Her performance opened with two straight backing-track-only songs, leaving her band with nothing to do, but when they returned for the third song, the transition was seamless; they were just as tight as her pre-fabricated tracks. Despite her music’s kitchen-sink approach, the show itself was impeccably precise musically. She ran through almost her entire self-titled debut album, with hits like “L.E.S. Artistes” and the ubiquitous “Creator,” and even dropped a remix track from her Diplo mix tape, Top Ranking. She brought out opener Trouble Andrew for their collaborative track “I’m A Lady” and fellow opener Amanda Blank for a handful of songs, including encore “B.O.O.T.A.Y.” from Spank Rock and Benny Blanco’s Bangers & Cash album.

The large (if not sold-out) crowd was enthusiastic. From the front of the stage to halfway back, the floor was packed with people dancing and bouncing with the music for the whole show. A lucky few even got yanked up onstage for set closer “Creator” and acquitted themselves adequately, if not spectacularly, as dancers.