Beth and I hung out at the Siren Musical Festival on Coney Island today, the highlight of which was M.I.A., who almost didn’t make the show because of her troubles securing a visa to re-enter the U.S., possibly due to her dad’s association with a militant Sri Lankan secessionist group.
She’s been a darling of the music critics with her electronica/hip-hop/Bhangra (lotsa tabla!) blend of bass-thumpin’ body-rockin’ singsong such-and-such and sometimes she reminded me of the saucy chant-rap of Missy or, uh, J.J. Fad, which I mean as a compliment. She performed her hits but I’m behind the times and didn’t recognize anything other than what I believe was a crawling cover of the Pixies’ “Where is My Mind?” The crowd at large was deeply into the performance and its composition was likely among the most diverse at the Festival, lamented in recent years as the sort that gathers for whiny white-boy rock. This crowd, in which we were sandwiched tighter than panini cheese, experienced breakouts of freak-dancing, crowd surfing directly over our heads, on-point sing-alongs, religious ecstasy style arm flailing, beachball batting, and more pot-smoking that I’ve experienced at a concert in recent memory. Two crackers in front of us shamelessly sparked up and later became deeply entranced by their gallon jug of Poland Spring water, then did that thing where you become momentarily hypnotized by your own fingers.
Another guy in front of us sported a blonde Mohawk and was hoisting above his head a giant circa ’85 boombox, Lloyd Dobler-style; it wasn’t playing anything, he was merely hoisting it, as one might hoist a lighter at a particularly rambunctious rock concert.
M.I.A. busted out fresh threads for the occasion. If I had to describe them in one word, it would be “sequins.” Vest with gold-sequined shoulders. Tight pants fully spangled in black sequins. And Chuck Taylors coated in silver sequins; they glinted in the setting sun when she occasionally propped one up on the monitor speaker. She also wore a cap that she appeared to have swiped from the captain of Captain & Tennille, then adorned it with a red feather, and at one point she had her DJ pause so she could apply some lipstick and don a pair of Grace Jones-style sunglasses. There were some technical difficulties with a malfunctioning microphone and Siren’s requisite crappy sound doesn’t bring out any subtleties, but the DJ kept the beats flowing and M.I.A. rocked the mike with but only a few brief breaks. Good show. Check out some much better photos of it here.