Cultural Passport – Miike Snow

“Encore, Encore, Encore.” Those were the only words heard at Terminal 5, in New York City, on October 6, 2010, after Miike Snow left the stage. In one of the craziest live performances of September, the Techno-pop band Miike Snow put on one hell of a performance. They were touring to help promote their new self-titled album, which came out last September.

From the second I entered the venue I knew the concert was going to be insane. Terminal 5 is a small venue in the Upper West Side section on Manhattan. Most of the audience has general admission standing room seats, and they jump up and down throughout the concert. There are a few balcony seats, but besides those few tickets the rest of the concert is basically an open floor. This concert was extra crazy because the band made the venue feel like a club. The lighting was amazing and the heavy bass of the music was vibrating through each person in the crowd. Miike Snow also added antlers onto their instruments, mimicking the antlers shown of their album cover.

The band was much better live than on their CD; this is one of the easiest ways to tell which bands will make it far in their careers. In between songs Miike Snow had crazy transitions. They would stop songs halfway through, and once the crowd calmed down just a little, Miike Snow would perform even louder than before creating such a powerful atmosphere that cannot be described in words. The band controlled the crowd the entire time through the music and the lighting. When they played their smash hit, “Animal,” the crowd just went nuts. Everyone was screaming and jumping up and down; the girls were crowd surfing, and many shirts were thrown onstage. The people were drunk off themusic.

The only thing that got the crowd even crazier was when Miike Snow came back on stage for their encore song. Miike Snow performed a cover of Vampire Weekend’s “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance.” People who liked the original song before, fell into heaven, for this version made the original sound so plain and simple. Using a cover song from a mainstream band in the same genre helped Miike Snow connect to the audience even more. If you haven’t seen them yet, I recommend seeing Miike Snow next time they come to NYC; Their energy and passion has yet to be matched.