Saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs Sunday night. Since I wasn’t feeling all that well and John wanted to watch the Cardinals game, we decided to skip the opening acts and only see YYYs. We guessed that 10 pm was a safe bet, and we got there at a few minutes after 10, and they had just taken the stage and started the first song. The timing couldn’t have been better, though we did have to stand at the back of the crowd. (This is where being tall comes in handy).

Karen O. is a nutcase. Lots and lots of energy. She was theatrical and dramatic. She had masks and costume hats and Stevie Nicks-esque capes and other flowy fabrics. The other members did the music dude thing and kind of hung around. The music did sound a little muddled at times. They could have done a better job refining their live sound. My main complaint is with the vocals – she was entirely too hard to hear above the drums and guitars.

Also, to my surprise, they didn’t play Way Out off the new album, which is the song I wanted to hear above all others. It reminded me of when I saw Radiohead on their OK Computer tour and they didn’t play Electioneering, which was of course the only “rock” song on that record. I guess they were too cool to play any rock songs amidst a set of spacey quasi-electronic numbers.

Here are some pictures I lifted off flickr. Yes, I realize they’re all of the singer. The guys in the band weren’t that exciting.