Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Blood on the Wall/ First Ave./ 4.16.06

I went to church twice this past Easter. Once was your fairly standard fare, nothing much to talk about. The second time, though, was at the church of rock, located last Sunday at First Avenue. The high priests of rock were Blood on the Wall and one of the few bands that has ever really blown my mind, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Blood on the Wall opened, and I have no idea why I hadn't heard of them before. They were fantastic, a three piece that was part Pixies, part riot grrl, part White Stripes and part Black Sabbath. Which is to say that their guitarist/singer sounded like Jack White and Ozzy's love child and looked like he should work in a cubicle, and their bassist/singer sounded like Kim Deal meets L7 and looked kind of like Audrey on Dawson's Creek during the phase when she was in a band. Their drummer, on the other hand, looked like he should have been in some sort of Dave Matthews/Phish commune, but played like a motherfucker.
And then came the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I must admit that when I first heard that they had gotten another guitarist to tour with them and then when I first heard "Gold Lion" (is that Nick strumming an acoustic guitar?!? what the hell?!?) I was a little concerned that my heroes had lost their edge. It turns out that the edge was not lost, it was just a little covered. Their live show still delivered the goods, from singer Karen O's crazy outfit (silver dress doesn't exactly describe it) and stage antics to guitarist Nick Zinner's scrawny frame and big sound to drummer Brian Chase's ability to deliver killer beats while looking no more perplexed than if he were watching TV. It didn't hurt that their new guy looked like one of the Strokes and sat in front of his amp rocking back in forth during the songs when he didn't play. They also had a killer backdrop, based on the flag that won their design-our-album-cover design. It looked, in fact, remarkably like the album cover, which is pretty awesome. Go figure.
I would love to give specific details about what songs they played and how they transitioned remarkably well from the loops and noise of the previous album and EP to the more mellow and full sound of the current LP, but the truth is that I was having way too much fun to take notes. So suffice it to say that it was a great show. More noise rock for everyone!