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Concert reviews Music

M.I.A.

M.I.A. with LE1F at Danforth Music Hall, Thursday, July 18. Rating: NNNN


M.I.A.’s heavily-anticipated fourth album, Matangi, has been held up interminably by disagreements with Interscope, but that hasn’t stopped the provocateur from playing the 21st century hype game. No stranger to the internet (though rightfully skeptical of it), M.I.A. has been leaking possible cuts from the record online, leading to the kind of blog ubiquity that initially beckoned her ascent into the pop stratosphere she was countering with her mid-‘00s revolution rap.

So even though officially M.I.A. had nothing to promote Thursday in Toronto, her Danforth Music Hall show – the second of the tour, taking place on her 38th birthday – felt like the first stage of a major comeback. Not that she ever really went anywhere – though the jittery agit-pop of her last full-length album, /\/\ /\ Y /\, was dismissed as a shrill misstep at the time, its web-era privacy paranoia now seems downright prescient – but the glimpses of new music she previewed offered the mix of zeitgeist-busting punk presence and mainstream crossover potential that is M.I.A. at her best.

That’s not to say her Toronto performance wasn’t without its missteps. The multicoloured flashing light wheels were as delightfully garish as M.I.A’s own stage presence, and her dance moves, coordinated with a backup singer, percussionist and two dancers, were charismatic and hypnotic, while avoiding the stiffness of over-choreography. But the sound was muddy and hollow and mostly pre-recorded. Even M.I.A.’s vocals were mostly performed to a guide track, a fact that became all too obvious as her hooks kept hooking as she turned the mic on the crowd.

Her rapport with the audience has always been one of her strong suits, though on this night it added an element of accidental danger. Submerging herself in the screaming, dancing, sweaty mass of fans was peril free, but she took a tumble on her way back to the stage. She dusted herself off with no harm done, but her later invitation for a fan to come up onstage and smash a coconut was just tempting fate. She later rewarded the audience with flowers, which she gave out during the encore, but for such an outspoken public presence she barely had any stage banter.

On this occasion, her songs spoke louder than her words. Though fans reacted most feverishly to hits like Bad Girls, Galang and the inescapable hit Paper Planes, new tunes Bring The Noize and Only 1 U fit the ear-piercing noise-rap energy of /\/\ /\ Y /\ standouts Born Free and the Sleigh Bells assisted Meds and Feds.

That next album is going to be a big one.

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