Concert Review: Pre-Millenial Tricky

Tricky, once Adrian Thawes, is undeniably one of the most influential artists to come out of the trip-hop scene. Countless bands and performers have followed the path he laid out with his work with Massive Attack and his debut album, 1995's Maxinquaye. Since then, Tricky's moved on: his albums following Maxinquaye, including Juxtapose, his latest, largely abandon its mellow vibe for a darker, harder hip-hop sound. The audience that came to see him at Avalon last Thursday seemed to be hoping to sway to the sounds of his first album, by far the most popular work he has done. His live show, however, took pieces of his entire four-album discography and melded them into something entirely different.

On this tour, Tricky was joined by a live band who did a surprisingly astute job of recreating the menacing environment of his recordings. They mixed genres seamlessly, performing ambient dub, driving jungle and straight-ahead rock with equal aplomb. While pre-recorded sounds were used, they were kept to a minimum. The sound was very tight but very flexible: four-minute tracks became ten-minute jams, with Tricky repeating phrases with mantra-like intensity. This vastly improved his music: in his studio work, Tricky compresses ideas into his songs, but the live venue allowed his songs to stretch out, achieving blinding power through repetition. A nameless female singer performed the roles played on record by Martina Topley-Bird (Tricky's occasional girlfriend and frequent collaborator), while British rapper Mad Dog joined Tricky for a few tracks from Juxtapose .

After an unnotable opening DJ set by DJ Genaside 2, things started off with "Anti Histamine," a B-side that started off as a remake of Blondie's "Heart of Glass." While the chorus was still recognizably Blondie, the song was transformed into a bruised industrial stomp. Tricky's numerous remakes proved to be the high points of the evening. Among the crowd pleasers was "Black Steel," which turned Public Enemy's classic "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" into full-bore rock, and, what's more, made white kids from the suburbs dance to it. Tricky ended his set with "Pumpkin," in which he achieves the seemingly impossible task of making a Smashing Pumpkins sample into dubby groove. Halfway through the song, it suddenly morphed into a cover of Eric B and Rakim's "Lyrics of Fury," sped up to feverish drum 'n' bass intensity.

Old favorites "Hell Is Around The Corner" and "Overcome" made an appearance, performed in a more or less by-the-book fashion. The majority of the songs played, though, were vastly different than their album counterparts. Tricky performed with a frightening intensity, crouched over the microphone, jerking his head back and forth. "For Real," an anti-record company rant from Juxtapose, went on for over ten minutes, much of which was Tricky chanting "You watch too many films/Films are for real" in his distinctive rasp and improvising lyrics. "You," in which he repeated the line "tear out my eyes," was performed in a similar style. Rap covers "Bad Dream" and "The Moment I Feared" were performed at breakneck speed by the female vocalist. "Tricky Kid" was as menacing as ever. Amidst all this cacaphony was the peace and beauty of "Christiansands" and the piano blues of "Makes Me Wanna Die."

As the show proved, Tricky's perhaps at his best when he's reinterpreting songs. But Tricky's a somewhat difficult figure to embrace whole-heartedly. While he's to be admired for criticizing the motives of record companies (for commodifying violence through gangsta rap), that hasn't stopped him from producing his own music endorsing violence and the gangsta lifestyle. And more often than he criticizes the politics of record companies, he's criticizing the salary they pay him. More problematic is the subtext of misogyny that permeates his work. While it was minimized in the wake of Maxinquaye, it makes an unhappy rebound on Juxtapose and was prominently on display in his inter-song patter and several of the newer songs, including "She Said" and "I Like the Girls." The audience at Avalon, however, paid none of these any attention. Undoubtedly, this is partly because Tricky is a terrible enunciator: in the wall of sound created by the band, nearly all the words were lost.

With Juxtapose, Tricky is positioning himself to appeal to mainstream U.S. hip-hop crowd. It's going to be a tough sell, though: Tricky's hip-hop resembles little else on the market. He's an extraordinarily versatile musician; while he may not always be palatable, he's certainly interesting, and you can't say that he doesn't put on a good show. Avalon unfortunately marred the ending of his show: the lights went up during the second encore, halfway through a terrific rendition of "Vent." Next time, maybe, they'll let him finish.