Las Vegas Weekly

August 8, 2009 · 2:02 PM

10 things you missed if you weren’t at Underworld Thursday night

By Deanna Rilling

Photo: Richard Brian

10. Even though the Joint wasn’t full (another example of a non-mainstream touring act falling victim to a half-packed house), the core group of attendees were completely into the performance and the vibe was perfect.

9. A close inspection of Hyde’s nasal cavity thanks to a handheld camera he aimed at his face. (Think the portion of Blue Man Group when a blue man aims a scope down an unsuspecting audience member’s throat.)

7. Wacky-Waving-Inflatable-Arm-Flailing-Tube Man!!

8. Rick Smith and Darren Price running more laptops than an Apple store. Karl Hyde talked about the tech-y details of what happens on when the Weekly spoke with him prior to the show:

We’re running so many pieces of kit, lots of Macintosh, lots of live things happening. I’m playing guitar; I’ve got I’ve got techs prepared on old CDs. I’m chopping up songs and effects, I’m ad libbing live microphones…This is quite a live beast that we’ve developed for going out. It’s not like pressing a button and it all kicks off. You can press as many buttons as you’d like and nothing’s going to happen. Just like with a violin or a trumpet or a traditional instrument, it’s very much a live piece of kit and there’s months and months of preparation that goes into developing any new set of instruments that we take out on the road.

Most of the things are brand new for us on this tour, which is kind of freaky, really, because we really don’t know what’s going to happen. If we turn that thing on, is it going to work? I don’t know. But there’s a greater flexibility than I can remember in the last 20 years for Rick and me. So if something doesn’t go quite right, we just go somewhere else with it and the idea of things not going quite right is actually what we prefer because the curve ball brings something out in Rick and me. Things going perfectly is kind of boring.

6. Karl Hyde doing a fantastic impression of a disco ball thanks to his Liberace sequined jacket.

5. “Cowgirl”!

4. Insane visuals and projections on the aforementioned inflatable tubes that were lit from within like giant multi colored JuJubes.

3. Closing out the night with “Moaner” as the encore, the crowd was worked up into a frenzy.

2. Humongous white balloons batted around by the crowd during “Born Slippy.”

1. Dancing 101 lessons from Hyde, who probably would have been just as enthusiastic if only four people showed up and worked the stage last night as if channeling Mick Jagger’s saucy moves. And we loved it.

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