It's true, roses ARE red and violets ARE blue, but for this Valentine's Day there were only a few (flowers that is). As an annual event, the local alternative radio station puts on a shindig for the singles in Kansas City, otherwise known as the VD Party. It's generally been a free event and has proven to be rather successful in the past. For this year's line-up the station searched high and low for a perfect 'lover's lane' antidote and what they came up with was none other than Ok Go.

With their last real notch in the scene coming circa 2005, not a whole lot has been seen of the band since Oh No. It wasn't until January 2010, with the release of their most recent album Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, that audiences started to finally see more of the four guys. While mostly traveling internationally, Ok Go graciously agreed to spend a single night in the U.S. with our fair city and then promptly hopped back on a plane headed for Australia. So, for roughly an hour and a half it was a mind-trip into the next stage of the bands development.

As anyone could guess a large percentage of the night was composed of new hits off of the current album. The Spoon-ish number "White Knuckles" brought in a bit of 70's style pop groove and the need for a strobe light. The song "I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe" goes on a simple path of 3-note bass grooves, peppy guitar licks and sexy vocals. The new tunes were well represented, but for a band as experienced as these guys you can never ignore your radio hits. So naturally the set was littered as well with a few easily recognizable numbers. First, everyone's favorite treadmill dance number "Here We Go Again" was surprisingly set smack dab in the middle of the set, which left room at the set's end for "Do What You Want," a song with pop guitar and cymbal-heavy percussion, all synced perfectly to the extremely addictive lyrics makes for an undeniably catchy tune.

An encore was pretty much a given, but an encore that was more produced than the original set was not expected. After a few changes were made on stage, the lights went down and out came 4 screens. On these screens were the letters of O-K G-O, scrolling down as though they were music filled slot machines. When the scrolling stopped and the letters aligned, the screens walked away, for these were not normal screens. Rather these were electronic jackets placed on the backs of the band members. And on the front were feather lined, laser beam emitting, guitars/basses. With a back drop of videos and illuminated feathered instruments, the band performed their encore. The final numbers included new songs, such as "WTF?," a highly electronically infused musical selection that seems to take in a Flaming Lips influence, with its distorted vocals and synthed additions. And to end the psychedelic encore we got "Invincible." While there was not as much electronic effects weighing in for this one, the pure rock was more than enough to fully support the awesomeness. The precision guitar sat opposite some thrashing drums and took the anger heard in the lyrics to a form that seemed to burst out of each audience member.

For the only night (in the past few months at least) spent in the U.S. it can be said that it was a complete success. And by the end of the set, those roses and violets were nowhere to be seen. All that was left were some fully rocked Kansas Citians.

-Rachel Fredrickson

Ok Go
w/ Crash Kings, Paper Tongues, & Company Of Thieves
February 13th, 2010
The Midland Theater
Kansas City, MO

photo by RJ Stills

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