ACL Notes: M.I.A.: Spectacular, a Goddess, Etc.

M.I.A.'s Friday ACL performance felt so seductive because it was both spicy and sweet; but what else can you expect from a girl who salts and peppers her mango?

She burst onto stage wearing pink pedal-pushers, white trainers, wrap-around glasses and war paint, all the while shimmying her heart out to Kala's "Bamboo Banga." Her dancing seemed confounded by tentative limb placement, and it marked her as one extremely sexy dork. (Hawt!)

It's this contradictory complexity that makes Maya Arulpragasam so bewitching. A daughter of war-torn Sri Lanka, she is gifted with a fierce warrior spirit, great physical beauty, anger, warmth, fearlessness, worldliness, a potty mouth, and gangly charm. She's nearly perfect, in that imperfect kind of way.

So it was a privilege just to get within 50 feet of her, and to watch the power of her performance build. And it did have to build. That's because, like her dancing, her voice at first expressed some tentativeness. The night before, when we caught her act on Letterman, we had chalked up her inaudibility to a faulty sound system. But M.I.A.'s lyrics seemed as indiscernible at ACL, all their color and consternation masked by stellar bangra beats, bad articulation, or something in between. For example: when she sang Arular's "Pull up the People," it generated collective ear strain to catch the simple chorus, "pull up the people, pull up the poor." That's no small problem for an MC whose motivating force is the promotion -- the ultra-hip promotion, of course -- of international political awareness. And shakin' ya rump.

Happily, the shakin' ya rump bit was never compromised. All the mumbling in the world couldn't kill the fun and ridiculous danceability of songs like "Boyz" or "Bucky Done Gun". M.I.A. kept on with her hypnotic, tribal inflection, and as she gained momentum (and alcohol), her voice got louder, wilder and more generally assured. In fact, the high point of the show was her invitation to audience members to rush the stage and dance. When they didn't climb the security barriers fast enough, she taunted, "Get up on stage! C'mon, where are the leaders here?!" (Apparently, Austin has so many leaders that the stage was quite immediately filled to capacity, M.I.A was unable to perform, and everyone had to return to their original viewing positions.)

Her afternoon set closed* with "Paper Planes," a giant flip o' the bird to David Letterman, who had forbidden her the previous evening from broadcasting the gunshot and revolver-cock soundscape so central to it's chorus, "All I wanna do is [bang bang bang bang!] and [k-ching] take your money." The song may have even been intended as a piss off to the whole of the United States. After all, M.I.A. has had some well-publicized trouble obtaining a visa, probably because she's suspected as some kind of musical terrorist.

And the shoe might fit; the tone of M.I.A.'s rage is gorgeous and celebratory, but even peaceful protest holds a note of danger when it incriminates those in power. She's not lying when she sings, "I'm knockin' on the doors of your Hummer, Hummer."

[M.I.A. official]
[M.I.A. MySpace]
[M.I.A. Village Voice interview]

Photo courtesy Patrick Dentler

*We discovered today the show closed with "Galang." Apologies for the error. -BL (9/20/07)

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By beth_lebwohl in Arts & Entertainment on September 18, 2007 2:31 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

guest

for me it warn't no contest. when someone great is gone is a keeper, but...

guest

I like M.I.A. but in it's scheduling brilliance ACL pit her against the mighty LCD Soundsystem. And that my friends is no contest! Plus James Murphy & Co. actually showed up and rocked the FactoryPeople party...

h o l y s h i t a k i

heyzeus, you like to type. I bet you like the sound of your own voice too, huh? I still love you though.

guest

Wow, I'm surprised anybody could have thought that was a good show. I love M.I.A.'s records, but that show was awful. Yeah, the sound was bad, but the factors that were under her control were worse. She was out of breath most of the time, like a little kid dancing and singing along to records in their room, except without the charm. The set just got worse and worse as it went along. Atrocious.

guest

her music seems too over produced. it's evident in live shows unfortunately.

guest

she's at hogg on nov 3?? that's the same weekend as funfunfun. not fair.

guest

strikes me that this year's muddled sound prob was actually overcompensation for last year's too much floating-round sound prob. possible?

thanks guest #18 for the Hogg info.

heyzeus

Holyshitaki, you enjoyed one artists' music, other people didn't. Why the fuck does it matter so much to you? Quitcherbitchin.

k

i thought the sound sucked at a lottttt of stages. wilco got louder as it went along, but at first i couldn't hear anything. colin meloy's mic wasn't even on for the first part of his song. ghostland, the bass was too loud, couldn't hear any of the beep-beeps. of course, you could hear bob dylan from your house a mile away, but i guess the excuse for his show all week has been "it's bob dylan."

m.i.a. was really fun and she put on a good show.

guest

To me, she was certainly the most interesting act--I loved her mix of rap, middle eastern, and unique sound effects. Add to that her awesome dance moves, and she had me at "Paper Planes." I'll be checking her out again at Hogg Auditorium on November 3.

h o l y s h i t a k i

hahahaha!! M.I.A. will never fit in with the ACL crowd. That's why you read comments like, "M.I.A. was fun for about 20 minutes". Her show was the best thing going down in all of Texas at that moment. She did her thing with a crappy sound system and she made it work. Austin wasn't ready for her. So just grab your beer and head on over to the Arcade Fire show and rock out with your kid sister next time.

guest

I was out there all weekend, and honestly, I have no beef with any act that I saw. I felt like I got my 3-day pass's worth over and over....but MIA was the weakest thing I saw all weekend. Maybe in a dark, smokey club it would've held my attention, but in blazing sunshine, it was just more thin DJ music with very little substance to make it interesting.

Andrew Bird, Bjork, Wilco, Devotchka, and many many more performed dynamic, captivating sets over the weekend. MIA shouted over a DJ. What's the hype for?

guest

"I love all the whiners coming on to bash everybody. Like I said at the festival, it's a good thing there are so many crybabies there hiding in the shade or walking away from acts after one song."

Nice.

guest

MIA is incredible, her music is incredible and she put on a pretty good show, though the mix was poor. I love all the whiners coming on to bash everybody. Like I said at the festival, it's a good thing there are so many crybabies there hiding in the shade or walking away from acts after one song. If they were like me, the crowds would be much bigger at each stage.

Speaking of whining, what the fuck is ACL doing selling tickets to next year's fest next week? Sure, it benefits austinites because we're more likely to commit so early, but really, my opinion is fuck them. They aren't getting my money a year ahead of time. Is it wrong to think this?

guest

As a decidedly non-MIA fan, I really enjoyed the show. Maybe that was b/c my grrlfriend was shaking her arse...maybe b/c I was shaking my arse.

guest

Even if she's an interesting human being, so are most of the people in the world. The kind hippie is an interesting human being but I don't see him on an ACL stage.

guest

The sound was horrible for sure.

What shows weren't "pure fun"? Were there some shows that were pure torture or something? I don't understand.

Oh, and Salt-N-Pepper sucked. All that shit sucked in the 1980s and early 1990s. What's with the nostalgia for those times? I know everything comes around again and I know people are allowed to like whatever they want to like, but why the hell are people wanting to listen to things that rehash the most processed shitty music ever? The kitsch factor can't possibly be all that exciting after the first 30 seconds, can it be?

bluenude3

I agree that the sound was crap, but as an MIA fan,I loved the show. She and her backup reminded me of salt-n-pepper when they were dancing. I was nice to have a pure fun show at ACL. Also, kicking everyone off stage because they didn't bring any green was classic!

guest

I'd so hit it.

I bet she likes it from behind.

b

now, guest #6, i acknowledged my favoritism, but you *gotta know* that if she had just farted up there for an hour, i would have reported back to you about that.

and *maybe* my review would have been overwhelmingly positive, because flatulating in front of hundreds of people takes guts. nursery rhymes, less.

b

oh, you guys are *killling* me! ;)

i like her, so maybe i was predisposed to find favor...

but even if you think she blew as a musical act, she's worth investigating as a human being. really interesting gal. check out the Village Voice interview.

guest

It sounds like the author here was already enamored with M.I.A. and that she probably could have taken the stage and performed nursery rhymes for an hour and the same article would've gotten written.

guest

The sound seemed really crappy to me, too - actually, the only time all weekend that a stage sounded crappy.

While I enjoy MIA's music, she's almost as overrated as Ghostland Observatory.

guest

Just to give an alternative prospective, I was in the crowd for the M.I.A. show and it was awful. The sound was horrible, it seemed like the bass had been turned up too high and it made it difficult to understand even a single word she said. They did have good stage presence and they were very energetic but their music was no better than any of the thousands of musicians who play in Austin every night.

guest

Anybody see her at Beauty Bar -- did she even show up?

guest

Fun and amazing, or boring as sh*t? I'll take the latter.

heyzeus

M.I.A. was fun for about 20 minutes, before the songs blended into one endless repetitive beat and indiscernible chanting. She's got energy and style, though.