Robyn’s body is talking. Are you listening??
There’s no doubting that Robyn’s got New York’s affection, as the gays were out in full force last night for the Swedish pop star’s sold-out show at Terminal 5. Sporting her high-waisted spandex pants and bleach blonde bob, Robyn was genuinely ecstatic to perform tracks from all 3 of her ‘Body Talk’ albums, along with hits from her previous works.
Beginning with the instant bang of “Fembot”, Robyn danced through her set of pop jams, sending the crowd into a frenzy during favorites like “Dancing On My Own” and “With Every Heartbeat”. The electro-robotic sounds of “Don’t F***ing Tell Me What To Do” and her Royksopp collaboration “Girl And The Robot” seemingly turned Terminal 5 into a full-on nightclub, with strobes flashing from the stage onto a very pleased audience.
Robyn definitely has rock star appeal. She confessed that she loves New York and spent some of her teenage years here, and she clearly loved her reception, as she came back for, not one, but two encores. During the second encore she performed a brief acoustic of Abba’s “Dancing Queen” (fit for a Swede), which led into a stripped version of her smash 90s hit “Show Me Love”, certainly a rare classic for this electro diva to perform.
Leading up to Robyn’s set were openers Natalia Kills and Maluca. British Natalia proved to be a new rising star, with her dark goth-pop beats and hyper choreographed dance moves. She slammed it down with her new single “Zombie”, though at times during her set, her back-up dancers took center stage as they were clearly keen on capturing the crowd’s attention with their “look at me” moves. They definitely knew their audience. New York’s own Maluca seemed to be from another planet (maybe Venus?), but in a good way. She screamed and cooed through an MIA-inspired set, with her super long weave and dub-heavy dance beats. At one point she told the story of ‘Hector’ from the year 3009, leading this concert-goer to wonder if I could have what she’s on. The opening acts were all about the dancers at this show though, as Maluca’s back-ups looked like they traveled from an even further planet (let’s say Xanadu), but definitely one that you’d want to party on.
It was a great night of electro pop magic, and anyone who hasn’t seen Robyn live yet needs to get on that bandwagon ASAP.
- Greg Willis
