Photos: Steven Chu
In Brooklyn, These Are Powers can draw a crowd, and Friday night for their Northside Festival performance at Death By Audio, the concrete raw space on South 2nd in Williamsburg, was amazingly packed. “We’re here to present the MTV award for best kiss,” announced lead singer Anna Barie and launched their set with their newest music video for their club-ready song “Easy Answers.” In the video, members of the group in tight jump suits and hooded cloaks dance in the forest—a new tack for the noise rock trio who characteristically deliver hyper frenetic sets.
“Baby I’m gonna give it to you,” Anna Barie howled into her microphone, her voice sounding as if coming straight up from the depths of the earth. Wearing bright red lipstick, her hair cropped in a short bob, and fitted into a sparkled, gold cocktail dress, she played a Roland sampling machine as she sang, making twisted hip-hop beats, a funereal dirge that reverberated throughout the walls of Death By Audio. “Don’t you forget about me baby,” she screamed. We won’t!
Looking like Ron Howard with an oversized Yankee’s cap, bassist Pat Noecker played his instrument as a lead guitar, running it through as many effects pedals as Barie’s voice. Bill Salas complimented the abnormal beats coming out of Barie’s sampling machine with his stop-and-go-drummimg. The music sounded like tribal pop music and the audience moved up and down with the rhythm.
“It’s fuckin’ hot in here,” Barie complained halfway through the set, and took off her gold, sparkled cocktail dress, revealing a spandex jumpsuit underneath, adorned with geometric patterns like the one she wore in the music video. A shirt catapulted from the audience to the stage and Barie wrapped it around her head like a turban. “It’s like strip poker,” she laughed.
Sweating and dancing as much as the audience, at the group’s closing number, Noecker half jokes, “Let’s extend the beginning because everybody still has their clothes on.” Barie gave an awkward look as Noecker unbuttoned his black dress shirt and threw his cap at the audience, revealing his balding head. A blonde woman with curly hair caught the cap and put it on.
“It looks better on you,” Noecker said, not kidding at all this time, and he started to play his bass, a sinister lead, all distorted and electric coming out of his amplifier. He held the entire group together, keeping the music’s pulse in check while playing a dark, danceable melody. Barie beat various rhythm parts out of her sampling machine while screeching into her microphone like a banshee. She threw wadded balls of black and white fabric, resembling her jump suit, into the audience. People snatched the fabric up and wrapped it around other people, tying what seemed like the entire room together, and everyone moved up and down like a wave.
