Ratatat played for well over an hour on a particularly frigid and icy night here in Knoxville last month.
Upon my arrival, The International was already jam-packed with hundreds of fans eagerly awaiting the unique guitar rifts this duet has become known for since inception in the early two thousands. Primarily college students braved the winter weather this night to witness the cacophony being produced from the duo that seems to make everyone of us just want to dance.
Mike Stroud and Evan Mass did the large stage justice by filling it with a collection of instruments and various visual effects pieces. While the music echoing through the speakers sounded exactly like that on their albums, it was Ratatat’s use of visual effects that really made the show standout. They set their stage productions up in a bisymmetrical array with a laser at the forefront of each stage left and stage right. These were no ordinary lasers though; I mean these bad boys must have cost twelve, fifteen grand each. I’ve never seen anything like the light show emitted from these machines. An array of colors was broader than Michelangelo’s palette with different shades, textures, and transparencies in flux constantly. But by far and away the most amazing part of these light emissions were their ability to create waves over the crowd. That’s right, waves. The beams of the lasers panned out as they stretched over the top of the crowd and as they spread wider and wider I could see the beams undulating up and down like waves in water. I could only imagine the heads full of acid and molly all around me staring at this light show brandishing smiles from ear-to-ear, as the effects on my sober mind were quite illusory to begin with. This effect of course was accented by the plumes of e-cig vapor being emitted all across the venue in that special way only smoke can accent flashing, twisting light.
In addition to these spectacular lasers, Ratatat erected Plexiglas screens just outside both of the lasers that stood about ten feet tall and six feet wide. Lights placed behind the Plexiglas was fractured and fragmented from our standpoint in front of the stage and added an extra level of chaos to the already maniacal concert. At times I would catch glimpses of the massive drop down screen stationed at the back of center stage through the Plexiglas as well. This caused the frenetic flashing images of statues and busts exploding, the scenes of war and thermal optics and the altogether tweaky and jumpy nature of the images on the screen to become that much more jarring and rifting.
Overall Ratatat put on an amazing show. I was a tad disappointed at their lack of deviation musically from their albums, but this did not distract from the quality of the show in any way. The visual accents they brought to their dance party were second to none, and elevated not only their music, but also the emotional pea soup within the building to a level of something truly special.
