OMD – New York 2011

Tour Stop #4 – Terminal 5 NYC 8th March 2011

As if to make sure everyone knew they were in a special city, the sun was shining for the first time since I left for this tour, which was a wonderful sight! It also promised to be an interesting show with it being one of the first to sell out and then get moved to a larger venue.

I was excited to see and more so meet some OMD forumeers at the first of the official gatherings I was going to be attending but as it turned out, no one from the forum showed up. No worries though as I met a group of wonderful people and had a blast with 4 of them… shouts out to Andrew (an English man so that was nice to hear the accent, made me think I was back in the UK), his friend Deb, and George and Loretta. They gave me a lot of laughs and thanks to them I ended up in the front row! I seriously and honestly had planned on being further back at this gig, partly due to going to the gathering so not queuing early but also because the VIP was sold out and there were a lot of gold tickets sold too meaning a lot of people going in first and to be honest, I was happily reserved to the plan of being in the balcony. Figured the guys needed a break and reported to a friend the front row was going to be a “Lori-free zone” for the night….um, oops. Sorry guys, my intentions were good!

So I will say right now this review is going to be a bit contradicting because of the nature of the show. In some ways it was better than the previous but in others, surprisingly, not so much. But I will explain…

Terminal 5 was by far the largest venue. The floor was quite large, at least twice the size of Montreal, probably even double Toronto’s but then there were also two balcony levels and both stretched out on 3 sides giving it a feel of being even larger. It holds roughly 3,000 and if it wasn’t sold out, it was darn close. I also noticed rather quickly that there were microphones strategically placed with one being smack in front of us (we were near the end of the stage on Mr. H’s side). As it turned out, it was being recorded and video taped for Vevo with the cameraman (also right in front of us… LOL, should be interesting to see if we are in it!) reporting they hoped to have it up in about a month.

Like earlier mentioned, NYC has a vibe and reputation to be an IT place and this seemed to be felt by Oh Land. When they came out, not only was Nanna in a trendy black and white outfit that had yet to be debuted but also had her face painted with gold metallic paint. And unless I was hearing wrong, they even did a new song that hadn’t been played yet. Yep, we’re in NYC… But I have to say, where I thought it would be the best crowd yet, it fell short. They cheered but it would be for a short time… a simple “Whoooo” and then done (well except for the last song but that thing is so darn infectious you would have to be half-dead not to get into it!) Hmm….

When it came time for OMD, the lights went down, the familiar (well to some of us) sounds of ‘History of Modern (Part III & IV)’ came on and the crowd opened up. ‘New Babies: New Toys’ was extra bombastic thanks in part to the fact that the sound of the evening was up a notch. Some times a bit too much as Mr. H.2’s drums would occasionally hit us hard and I was told by one fan later on who was more in the middle that Mr. M.s bass was too loud on a few songs but there was also a unique value at times. Hard to explain but almost like it was pristine…. precise… separated out like you could hear specific parts. Sorry if that isn’t making sense but at times I thought “Wow, this is the best sound yet” I am guessing due to the size of the venue, they try and go all out…

In terms of visual appreciation, the crowd was kind of like Boston, pockets of bouncing dancers but when they moved, they really moved such as during ‘History of Modern (Part I)’. That song is the equivalent of Oh Land’s ‘We Turn It Up’ no doubt and Mr. M.’s demands for “Bad dancing” was happily answered! Didn’t see any knickers or undergarments from Mr. H’s ‘(Forever) Live And Die’ tonight but the two girls next to me kept him busy and amused with their continual attempts to get his attention with screams and hand gestures relating to his keyboard playing.

Unlike Boston, this stage was huge and lent for Mr.M. to have free range for the double hitter Joan Of Arc and Maid Of Orleans and though it got a definite response, not as good as some others I have heard so far and that lack was even more evident after New Holy Ground and Green. A shame really since I listened to Mr. M. do ‘Green’ in what I thought was the most powerful version of the tour… it was a stand out to me but both songs got only decent applause in comparison to other gigs. Which leads me to the contradiction I mentioned earlier…. crowd-wise I would say this was the weakest in terms of the show. However, the band seemed to be really getting into it, maybe the most of all the gigs thus far. There was an additional surge of energy in a lot of what I saw, from Mr. M.s zealously filled demands to dance, to Mr. Hs facial expressions and movements (will elaborate in the highlight part of this blog). Was it due to being in NYC? Perhaps being in such a big venue helped or the video cameras on them but it made me want to be able to say this was #1 for me, it just wasn’t. I have, however been told by a few people who heard New Yorkers are more reserved and maybe that is it because like every other show, the lights came on and there was nothing but praise, adoration, excitement and OMG’s from everyone I saw and/or spoke to so I guess that’s all that matters. No one will argue that last night NYC was indeed an IT city and Terminal 5 was the IT place!

Ok, so highlight of the night: Mr. H literally bouncing up and down to ‘Sister Marie Says’! I can’t say for sure if his feet fully left the ground but if they didn’t, they were darn close to…how adorable!!!


Photos by Lori Tarchala