The cool night air flowed through the dark Brooklyn warehouse, packed to it's fully exposed rafters as the blonde wigged troupe of virgens took their places - be it on stage or amongst the audience - and let loose a divine chorus of lamenting love ballads and 60's rock'n'roll dance numbers complete with formation dance moves and multi-nippled costumes.
The numerous virgens - appearing not unlike the children in 'Village of the Damned' - seemed to be under the spell of 2 nun/witch type figures reminiscent of the Princess Mombi of 'Return to Oz', donned with large black oval shaped head gear and equally as evil make up and glaring scowls. And amidst all of this rose the cobweb covered viking horn/microphone wielding Karen O, eventually being tousled and torn about by said virgens to reveal a beautiful long-robed goddess-like figure, resembling a more elaborately dressed Tripitaka from Monkey Magic.
Unfortunately that's pretty much the end of my storyline review, as after that I had basically no idea what was going on. At a guess it seemed Karen-O and the 2 nun witches seemed to be in an eternal battle for the virgens souls, and surprise surprise it was Karen O who won out in the end as the virgen slaves fell at her feet spurting blood from their mouths and all down their pretty white frocks, to then be resurrected by song and cleaned of their evil sins. Or something.
All this aside it was a production of immense quality and creativity 7 years in the making, with lavish and wonderfully eccentric costumes (courtesy of Karen O's long time costume designer Christiane Hultquist, aka Christian Joy), haunting and inspiring audio visuals and production, and an epic soundtrack that has to be heard to be believed. I must say this was the stand out for me - the music was uniquely original, emotional, fun, daring and perfectly paired with the goings on on stage. And with musical performers such as Nick Zinner, Money Mark and Brian Chase in the wings you can't really go wrong can you.
Plus, rather then heading to your usual live music haunt on Manhattan to spend a fortune on drinks and watch your latest obsession churn out their greatest hits, it was a refreshing change to journey to a warehouse beneath the Brooklyn Bridge to see a show I could never imagine and may never see the likes of again. Lest it inspire us, as it should do, to throw off the work-a-day shackles and release our creative urges as they flow…
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