Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 20/04/08

If you want a revolution you've got to do it right. Particularly if this international, travelling coup d'état is going to subjugate the masses, who might be mere pop fans but are prone at the mercy of your message, ready to be bent into fighting shape. Some might call such a spectacle shock and awe and it seems Bjork now has the guns blazing infrastructure deserving of one of music's most celebrated and provocative icons. Because this is a show fit to burst with power and excitement, a wild and futuristic end of days tear-up where we feast on the mind-blowing preamble before marching on The Man.

Big words perhaps, but who else in 21st century music has forced the hand of the intransigent, bully-boy Chinese government, outraged by her use of the word "Tibet" at a recent concert? So it is that Bjork emerges this evening at the head of a multi-functioning battalion of force, leading a ten-strong female horn section labelled The Wonderbrass, their centurion outfits topped off, naturally, by flags. The stage is adorned with multi-coloured banners depicting nation states and nature, simple but definitive messages. The battle has begun.

With such an arsenal behind her and a call-to-arms as emphatic as the border-smashing opener "Earth Intruders", Bjork need not be outspoken to inspire tonight's crowd. As is traditional, she wears a series of peculiar outfits, the first of which seems to have been pinched from Joseph's amazing wardrobe. After a tumultuous "Hunter", jets of string fire from her fingertips, part "Spiderman", part foundation art class, but her charm is luminous. Musically, the "Volta" live show, dominated by the new album but spanning a six album history without pandering to chart figures, has settled into a dense, avant-pop space, driven by banks of digital equipment bossed by LFO's Mark Bell.

Other famous figures emerge to support the cause, which is played out in vivid colours against walls of visuals and bursts of pyrotechnics. Octopus-fingered kora titan Toumani Diabate joins Bjork for "Hope"'s paean to a suicide bomber, drawing us inexorably into a closing boom of dub bass beats fitting of the subject matter. Then Antony Hegarty ambles in seemingly off the street for "The Dull Flame Of Desire", looking very much capable of defying floods with his tortured warble and massive frame. Elsewhere, the subject of conflict is made all the more graphic by a pulsing, glowing onstage radar, which blows-up in a storm of red glitter at "Army Of Me"'s end.

Mining the corners of her career, there are passages here when the tough, abstract configurations make Bjork rather easier to admire than love. But then she cuts through with the frantic, shrill knockout of "Wanderlust" and an intergalactic "Hyperballad", the irrepressible creative force centre-stage shooting green lazers across the venue. Little, however, can compare with the white noise apocalypse brought by "Declare Independence"'s closing electro head-bang, which requires no incendiary intro, just the words: "One more song, then time for bed". Yes we should get some sleep. There is much work to be done tomorrow.

by Ben Gilbert