On Thursday night The Knife wrapped up their Shaking The Habitual tour with the second and final sold out show at Terminal 5in New York City. After all these years and never getting to see The Knife before, it was very cool to finally get to see them. There was a time where I honestly never expected that I would see them live.
The show started with some Deep Aerobics warmups that were meant to get the crowd pumped before the show went on. That they did. By the the time that they kicked into “Wrap Your Arms Around Me” the excited crowd was more than ready to go. The stage presence of The Knife was not something to take lightly. 11 members took the stage, all running around frantically doing something. If they weren’t dancing, they were singing, and if they weren’t singing they were playing something. Sometimes they would do all three at once. It was a wild experience to watch them all participate in the dances, something that made this more of a show than a concert.
With so many members and so much happening, it was easy to lose track of where Karen and Olof were. But this was the point. The show was much bigger than just them, as all nine of the other members on stage were just as important to the spirit of The Knife.
The night was mostly dedicate to Shaking The Habitual material as expected, but they still found time to play “We Share Our Mothers’ Health”, “One Hit” and “Silent Shout” from Silent Shout and “Bird” from their debut. No “Heartbeats”, although Karen ended up doing it karaoke style at an after party with Bill Murray in attendance.
As final track “Silent Shout” played us out, the band thanked us and told us that they’d see us again in another seven years. When it comes to The Knife, I do believe it will be a while before we see them, I just hope it’s before I turn 30.
Find more photos of the night posted below.
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