REVIEW: OK Go brings ‘And the Adjacent Possible’ to San Francisco
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY ALEAH ANTONIO ☆
Photos by Rianna Chloe
I NEVER THOUGHT OK GO WOULD TOUR AGAIN — It’d been ten years since their last record, 2014’s Hungry Ghosts, with little to show since its release. The band hadn’t broken up by any means – there was 2017’s “Interesting Drug” single and the pandemic’s “All Together Now,” through which all of OK Go’s original lineup has remained. Now, Damien Kulash, Tim Norwind, Dan Konopka, and Andy Duncan return with their exciting new record And the Adjacent Possible and return to the stage for the first time in over five years.
An OK Go show is an all-sensory experience. I can’t hear any song without picturing its music video in my head. It’s what the band is best known for — They have historically pushed the envelope of what a music video can be by incorporating Rube Goldberg machines, trained dogs, a Chevy Sonic, and their most popular stint on treadmills back in 2009. This is what I’m thinking of when the band opens their set with “This Too Shall Pass” from 2012’s Of The Blue Colour of the Sky and confetti rains from the Regency Ballroom. (The confetti sprays during multiple songs, by the way. According to Kulash, they use close to 100 pounds of confetti per show.)
They brought along shields of light tubes that worked behind them during their set, making the audience feel like they were inside of an Adjacent music video. During “Shooting the Moon,” they did a stripped down performance with only handbells, Kulash counting everyone in, like you were watching a band practice. The performance is so grand, so interactive, Kulash even taking questions from the audience while the band tunes and sets up for the next song.
They supplement their set with older songs from their small discography. They bring back tracks like “Get Over It” and “Do What You Want” from when the band were signed to Capitol Records and Kulash was serving Tyson-Ritter-meets-Pete-Wentz edgy realness. It’s always interesting to remember the stark difference of their early, borderline pop-punk career before they began to carefully curate power pop songs. It’s especially clear when one hears these songs against those from And the Adjacent Possible.
If someone in the audience didn’t already know, Kulash would inform them during the question and answer breaks that they didn’t mean to take ten years between albums. Kulash welcomed a set of twins after the release of Hungry Ghosts, while Duncan had his second child, and it wasn’t long after that the pandemic made their hiatus even longer. After all this time, OK Go still had their friendships intact and their innate creative whims hadn’t gone away.
Their new songs fit perfectly into their corner of their musical universe. They performed mostly the singles off their record, including “A Good, Good Day at Last” and “Love,” the former being an uplifting manifestation in a progressively depressing world, the latter an ode to the band’s experience with fatherhood. Not only are OK Go masterful musicians, but they’re clearly inspired by how music can exist beyond its instruments, like how a song can both create and explain an emotion at the same time.
Despite the rise of many reunion tours of early 2000s bands (see: Rilo Kiley, TV On The Radio, Bloc Party, etc.), this show didn’t feel like nostalgia fodder. It was a performance from a band that clearly still has something to say. Their entertaining performance is never just a cheap thrill when they are creatives at heart. It’s inspiring to see a band continue to push what is possible through their music.
