Last night in Koko was one of those nights that don’t happen very often: a gig that doesn’t bore you for a single second. At most concerts there are always moments when you start to get a little tired and think about what’s next, but Toro Y Moi pulled it off. The US artist played his self-declared ‘favourite show ever’.
Toro Y Moi started his project in 2007 and he’s been touring for quite some years now. Does it make sense when such an artist tells the audience that it’s the favourite show ever or is it just fakeness? Well, let’s believe in his message today, because last night in Koko everything came together: the lightshow, the imposing ex-theatre building, the over-enthusiastic dancing people (of course including the – constantly jumping – one guy on drugs) and the marvellous music of Toro Y Moi.
He achieved good reviews with his album Underneath the Pine in 2011, which is viewed his breakthrough record. Who remembers the weird genre title ‘chillwave’, that his music was called? It was a combination of psychedelic 1970’s sounding music with loungy elements. With his new album Anything In Return released this year it’s time for a bigger sound and Toro Y Moi experiments with more house and dance elements.
That works in Koko; the spacious building makes it the ideal theatre for a highly developing artist like Toro Y Moi. Songs like ‘Say That’ and ‘Harm In Change’ totally give the audience a boost and Toro Y Moi is at the right place at the right time. He seems to realise this by telling the audience it’s his favourite show ever. And although Toro Y Moi ‘has the sniffles’, even the highest regions in his vocals are pure. Combine this with a perfectly playing band which seems to like it and the words of Toro Y Moi do seem to make sense: it’s one of the best shows this year we’ve seen so far.
Photo’s by KOKO London / Joe Traylen.
