Santigold @ 9:30
Her music is a hodgepodge of styles (rap, ska, reggae, rock, electro, dub), and last night the 9:30 Club was treated to the whole Santogold smorgasbord. In addition to many of the cuts from her eponymous album, Santogold (aka Santi White) found time to cover The Cure and Spank Rock and sing the loop from "Shove It" over and over, which Jay-Z used for his track, "Brooklyn (We Go Hard)". Toss in a few guest appearances by the openers (the half-naked Amanda Blank and mumbler Trouble Andrew), stir in some android backup singers/dancers (who were awesome, by the way), gold-accented costumes, an audience member dance competition on stage and ... you get the idea. And, as if we weren't overwhelmed enough by all the visual and audio stimulation, we had to ponder her recent decision to change her name from Santogold to Santigold, a small, but essential distinction.
No one really knows what to call Puffy/P. Diddy/Diddy these days, but that doesn't keep him from being a super-successful hyphenate, so why should Santi be worried about buying and swapping a vowel? Turns out the reason for the new stage name was more necessary (and hilarious) than all that. It seems that Santogold was sued by the the original Santo Gold, another hyphenate of sorts, who is (in)famous for a horrible '80s B-movie that has been described as, "a wrestling-themed science fiction flick, with aliens from the planet Zoran fighting the US and USSR." Surprisingly, the movie, Blood Circus, was never released, but Santo Gold used clips of it in his jewelry infomercials. I shit you not. Just watch this. It will blow you away.
Anyway, back to the show. Despite all the genre-bending music, name confusion, painfully-loud bass, tired-looking band, and zombie back-up dancers, Santi did a great job of pumping up the audience. She thanked the D.C. crowd from the start and mentioned that one of the first gigs she ever played was right here in Chocolate City, with Architecture In Helsinki. She ticked off two big tracks, "You'll Find A Way" and the impossibly catchy "L.E.S. Artistes" right out of the gates, leaving one to wonder how she would end the show.
Santi was flanked by the aforementioned stoic, zombie back-up dancers, who wore striped 1980s sunglasses, gold jackets, and tights. They mostly stood or swayed catatonically, but occasionally they'd do the "Walk Like An Egyptian" dance or sing robotic back-up vocals. We later learned their names: Agnes and Agatha. For the first few songs, the electronic backing tracks pulled most of the weight, which left the band looking bored and sad in their gilded hats. A few times during the set Santi would trail off or yell something like, "C'mon D.C!" which had the effect of revealing pre-recorded vocals. And while those recordings helped her voice to sound big and antiseptic throughout the show, it was kind of a bummer to discover them.
During a few songs the bass was pummeling. You could feel it in your lungs and it tickled your hair. When Santi asked the crowd if we liked The Cure, ears pricked up in excitement. Yeah! We like The Cure! Then when she covered "Killing An Arab", which few in the room seemed to know, and it sucked a bit of air out of the room.
Certainly, it wasn't a bad show. There were some excellent highlights, like "I'm A Lady", a song that, as Santigold pointed out, many of the men in the audience were happy to sing along to. There was "Lights Out", a peppy rock number with muted guitars. And "Creator", which she ended her set with, is a fun M.I.A.-style romp. But really the issue was that form trumped the substance of the show, of which there was little. I will confess that having seen TV On The Radio on Monday and Passion Pit on Tuesday didn't help my perceptions much either. Santi could get a better light show, maybe a more spirited band, write a few more songs like "L.E.S. Artistes, etc., but whatever she does, she definitely, definitely needs to keep those comatose back-up dancers.