Andrew W.K. with Calder String Quartet - Le Poisson Rouge, New York City, NY (1.8.12)
Posted by Matt Arena on 01.11.2012
Mixing his hard rock style with a classical string quartet, Andrew W.K. showcased his unique brand of live music in New York City. The end result was of course, a party.
I’ve gotta say, the words “orchestra” and “Andrew W.K.” don’t really sound like they should belong together in a sentence. For a man that is known for his crazy live shows, loud ass rock music, and of course his partying, one wouldn’t think it would be conducive with a string quartet. But he has a bit of a history pairing up with the Calder String Quartet to present an unexpected show and a unique spin on his material. On January 8th, they teamed up at New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge, bringing their joint show total well up into the teens. I hadn’t seen Andrew W.K. at all before, and definitely not with an orchestra so I really didn’t know what to expect.
And that feeling was compounded when I got into the venue. It was entirely seated, the floor taken up by fancy tables and high-backed chairs, something that isn’t really a staple of an Andrew W.K. show. With no opening act and starting a little after 7:30, the Calder String Quartet came out to perform a song themselves. Remember of course, this is an orchestra so it was about a 30-minute piece centered around the Western Expansion. Not being a massive fan of orchestral music (and especially not for 30 minutes), I’ve must admit I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. It was aggressive, beautiful, and moving all at the same time. I was pretty thankful for the seated set up, as it made photographing about a thousand times easier. After their piece, Andrew W.K. stepped out and talked a bit about how much he enjoyed playing with a string quartet, especially in New York City. Andrew monkeyed around on the piano for a bit, and was soon joined by his string accompaniment for what seemed like a couple of impromptu jams. Of course they did have sheet music in front of them so it probably wasn’t all that impromptu. The entire show felt very loose and free form, with a good amount of just Andrew talking (who is pretty damn funny, by the way) and of course a couple of really cool interpretations of his songs. The highlight of the night for me was “Party Hard.” I had no clue how or what the song would sound like with a backing orchestra, and the result was tremendous. Of course at first, I was laughing, just hearing guitar riffs being played by violas is downright hilarious, but also worked really well. I never thought it was possible to headbang along with a string quartet, but I was proven wrong.
In usual Andrew W.K. fashion he was moshing and throwing himself around the stage (while the quartet calming played in the background), with the crowd providing rowdy back up vocals. Right before the chorus to party hard, all the music dropped out as Andrew cupped his hand to his ear to hear the crowd shout out “do we what we like, and we like what we do”, which was an oddly rowdy moment for a seated show. The hands-down weirdest moment of the night came at the very end. Andrew thanked everyone for coming out and said we’d have one last song. Then it was dead quiet for a full 5 minutes. Nobody moved. Nobody talked. I don’t even think anyone blinked. There were laughs at first. Then people got confused. Which made it even funnier to me. The audience was clearly uncomfortable and had no idea what was going on. Is he joking? Is something wrong? Should we leave? A couple people did. I still have no clue why the show ended on such an odd (yet hilarious) note, as Andrew just popped up after a while and said thanks, like nothing ever happened. It was a bizarre way to end what was a unique and great night.
The 411: As funny as it was rocking, Andrew W.K. lived up to his reputation as the consummate party man, even with a string quartet. He brought the party to classical music. I’d highly suggest seeing him whenever he gets together with Calder String Quartet again. It’s always interesting to see artists mix such seemingly opposite styles of music together, to have the result be unusual and extremely enjoyable. That’s exactly what Andrew W.K. did with Calder String Quartet. Rock + classical = party.
