Pitchfork

The Knife's performance at Webster Hall last night wasn't just great, it was kind of revelatory. Olof and Karin Dreijer, dressed in black coveralls and black ski masks (or was it blackface makeup?), were just a small part of the entire immersive experience, a combination rave/art installation/laser light show.

They stood both behind and in front of screens, on which were projected trippy geometric shapes, childish drawings, and ghastly figures, and were flanked on the stage by balloons bearing images of distorted faces. The way the elaborate light show hit their own faces made the pair look alternately like jack-o-lanterns, monkeys, or bank robbers, which pretty much sums up the varying moods of the performance: mischievous, playful, terrifying.

I'm not sure how much live music the Dreijers actually performed. Karin's mouth definitely moved, and Olof was certainly hitting something with his giant drum sticks, but it wasn't clear whether or not those motions corresponded with anything inside the crystal clear, surround sound sonic stew enveloping the venue. They played rejiggered versions of Silent Shout favorites such as "Like a Pen", "We Share Our Mothers' Health", "Forest Families", and the title track, and even threw in a shimmering, subdued take on "Heartbeats". The music was flashier and more dance-oriented than on record, much closer to Euro-trance/cheese/trash than I'm used to. Of course, it sounded amazing. So we're confronted with the reality of one of the best albums of the year, by one of Pitchfork's favorite bands, delivered using tropes that send the authenticity police into fits of rage: lip-synching, silly dancing, cool light show, superclub dance beats. Does that mean the Knife's performance was insincere, or lightweight, or somehow less worthy than that of a band sweating through a set, pounding on their own instruments and pouring their hearts out on the mic? Fuck no. Does it mean that we need to alter our antiquated notions of "worthiness" and "realness" in pop music performance? Fuck yes.

The Knife [Webster Hall; 11:30 p.m.]

After being flattened by the Knife, I headed to this weird (but kinda cool) afterparty at the West Side meat market Club B.E.D. It was dubbed the "Zombie Prom", so the place was full of people with fake blood on their faces and, inexplicably, a pair of dudes dressed up like Pac-Man. (Nobody seemed to care that Halloween was a day earlier.) But the main attraction was a performance by Lupe Fiasco, who tore up the place like it was a stadium packed with screaming fans, rather than a half-full loft space populated by distracted VIPs.

I was hoping to hear him perform "The Cool", given that this was the ZOMBIE prom, and it's possible that he did, but I arrived about halfway into his set. So I caught "I Gotcha", "Kick, Push", "Daydreamin'", and other Food & Liquor tracks, as well as a mixtape cut in which he rhymes over Gorillaz. Lupe was sporting a pencil-thin moustache, and while I usually am quite anti-moustache in general, it looked pretty badass on him.

Lupe Fiasco [Club B.E.D.; 1 a.m.]