Dear Diane and Shaded Viewers,
Tonight marked the final performance of The xx’s residency at Park Avenue Armory. However, to label the show that Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith put on as a concert would be far too simplistic.
Moving through the Armory’s barren underground corridors and dimly lit walkways on the way to the stage proved to be the perfect sensory deprivation and simultaneous palette cleanser from urban white noise in anticipation of the night’s ensuing phantasmagoria.
There is certainly a very dreamlike quality to The xx’s music, and being encased in a small, screened off room which captured projections of images like soothing aquatic reflections on the walls and ceiling heightened that feeling to an almost transcendental state. Dressed in appropriately minimal black clothing (the band has a long-time collaborator in fellow London designer Hannah Marshall), the trio proceeded to revisit both their self-titled debut album and its 2012 follow-up, Coexist.
Lights pulsated to the beats of the songs and the projections added tactile texture to each track. The show reached a visual climax when the screens dropped completely to reveal that the audience was actually standing in the 55,000 square foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall, completely illuminated by prism strobe lights. But in the end, none of this felt like flashy show gimmicks — instead the result was a stunning, beautifully constructed and ultimately unforgettable combination of sight and sound.
Later,
Carla
