A whole lot of confetti was flying around San Antonio Monday night.
Even as it was being flung at the Riverwalk for the annual Fiesta Week
boat parade, the band OK Go was blasting tons of it inside the nearby
Aztec Theatre on Commerce Street.
Perhaps most famous for its complex and colorful YouTube videos, OK
Go has built a solid reputation as a multiplatform band whose concerts
are equal parts musicianship and performance art, and Monday’s show was
no exception. Filled to bursting with awesome sights and sounds, it was a
great way to bring arena-style rock to a theater-sized space.

The band began its set standing behind a semitransparent scrim upon
which the members’ distorted faces, mimicking the cover of its latest
release,
Hungry Ghosts, were projected. It was an effect that
set the tone for the show to follow, mixing technology and live
performance in a literally in-your-face manner. Seven songs from that
album were performed, along with six from its 2010 effort,
Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, and three each from its freshman and sophomore efforts
OK Go and
Oh No.
And just to demonstrate its hard-rocking chops, the quartet kicked out a
quite respectable cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog.”
Despite the stylistic evolutions the band has experienced over the
years, from power pop to more serious-minded music, the set nevertheless
flowed organically, augmented by some wicked stagecraft.

Interactivity was the overriding theme of the show, as frontman
Damian Kulash conducted a couple of audience Q&As; he also used his
iPhone to transform its clapping, stomping, and high-hat
impersonations (you had to be there) into a percussion track. The singer
even jumped into the crowd himself to render a lovely acoustic
performance of “Last Leaf.”
Kulash’s vocals sounded terrific (you
must hear his Robert Plant) as did the entire band, including bassist Tim Nordwind, drummer Dan Konopka, and keyboardist Andy Ross.
The visual spectacle was nonstop and mesmerizing—sometimes both the
rear screen and the scrim would be alive with flashing shapes and colors
to intensify the more psychedelic portions of the evening.
For the encore, the band reappeared dressed in identical white
jumpsuits to bring the “A Million Ways” video to life as Nordwind
lip-synched his original vocals. The neat trick was that when the suits
were illuminated by blacklight, they became distinctively and brightly
colored.
Closing with the inevitable “Here It Goes Again,” Kulash invited
audience members up onto the stage to dance as even more confetti was
fired into the air. I don’t know what was happening on the Riverwalk at
that moment, but inside the Aztec, it was a joyous celebration indeed.
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