Massive Attack, Orpheum Theatre, October 1, 2006
By MATTHEW GASTEIER | October 3, 2006
Massive Attack |
There are always questions before the lights go down at a show, but Massive Attack offered more to ponder than usual at the Orpheum Sunday night. The band are 15 years into a career of continual reinvention and eight years into a self-imposed exile from the US. Who would show up? And after the career-capping greatest-hits release Collected (Virgin) earlier this year, would they and the trip-hop genre they helped invent still be relevant? They answered with an engaging, high-energy performance. Only Robert (3D) Del Naja represented the original core (“I’m the white guy,” he declared early on), Mushroom having long since left and Daddy G still minding his family at home. But Naja didn’t come alone: Elizabeth Frazer of the Cocteau Twins, Horace Andy (whose performance of “Man Next Door” was one of many highlights), and Deborah Miller were on hand, along with a full, hard-rocking back-up band.
Massive Attack have always been more of a collective than a trad band, employing various singers and musicians. They’ve put sound before image, an idea that was driven home at the Orpheum by a stage set in which they could barely be seen. Instead, dark silhouettes hovered in front of a huge wall of brightly shifting lights that pulsed to the music. For a band who are generally thought of as good for a chilled-out, late-night listen, the performance was aggressive. “False Flags,” one of two new songs from Collected, was a blistering beginning, both in its politically charged lyrics and in its thundering coda. Statistics of casualties and conditions in Iraq scrolled by news-ticker style as Del Naja and Miller sang “Safe from Harm.” The career, it turned out, is ongoing. And yes, Massive Attack are still relevant.
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