By: Cyn Collins
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Architecture in Helsinki - Publicity photo
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Just when I thought the live music couldn’t get any better, Architecture in Helsinki, from Melbourne, Australia (nowhere near Helsinki) performed at the 7th Street Entry shortly after Arcade Fire’s performance in the Main Room. Architecture in Helsinki is another 8 or 9 piece band with a 3 – 4 piece horn section, a couple keyboards, almost too many percussionists to count (including congas played by a wild man with a bushy beard), a few strong, cute Australian women playing and singing deceptively lullaby-like backup. They feature a strong charismatic lead singer, the whole band plays with excellent timing and youthful energy. As with Arcade Fire, most of the members capably switched instruments all over the place.
The packed Entry was an ecstatic dance party as the band played an amalgamation of funk, soul, reggae, disco, new wave, jazz, hip hop, and Latin rhythms . . . the Australians pulled off what sounds crazy on paper, brilliantly. The closest I can come to a description for the local reader is if you meshed Melodious Owl with the Gleam, Fitzgerald, and Willie Murphy and the Bees (an infamous West Bank big band of 8 – 12 people, replete with a killer horn section), with some James Brown thrown in for good measure. From now on, I find a band lacking if there isn’t a horn section, and hopefully a fiddle. Adding two slide trombones and a tuba really make it hot.
The crowd (many who were at the Arcade Fire show earlier) grinned and danced though packed together like sardines. Strangers were dancing with each other, beaming with looks of disbelief, happy tears in their eyes, all in Minneapolis! I have never felt such a bond with the music and the crowd (except for jugband events on the West Bank!)
I often long to go back in time and see the 1960’s era Willie and the Bees I now feel sated experiencing Architecture of Helsinki. Leave it to the wild Australians to do it for me. The band declared that Minneapolis audiences are their most enthusiastic and they love us. Good, they’ll come back then.
The lead singer bore an uncanny resemblance to Ian Curtis; his vocals and his physical mannerisms and expressions also resembled Curtis’s. Others who agreed said they hoped he feels better than Curtis did. Indeed the lead smiled more, and seemed a happier fella.
For the encore, he covered Prince’s “I Would Die For You.” I want to see Architecture in Helsinki at least 38 more times before I die. The band was joined by members of Wolf Parade for a few songs at the end. We were bereft to have the band that lives so far away, that pleases us the most, end the show.
Location Info:
7th Street Entry
Artist Info: Architecture in Helsinki
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