Live Review: Kimbra - Metro City

Jeff Beck proxy Daniel Merriweather broke in the stage, delivering a concise, guitar-cored set that peaked with the chart-familiar track Red. It was a chipper run by Merriweather, but a little overshadowed by the grandeur of the act and artist that followed up.

Bracing for her big-time US exposure, Kimbra was a total blast. Opening with the staccato drumbeat of Limbo, Kimbra Johnson's outfits are a paragraph in their own right: dress one had her clacking around the stage like an ostrich to the track's spasmodic snare. Good Intent was the vamp follow-up, and the howls of the refrain let Kimbra get her vocals properly into key. It's a gospel sound that comes from her gut, and her cyclonic touring schedule has evidently sharpened her live sound. Settle Down dropped next; bombastic, loud, bordering on burlesque in its charisma but trenchantly classical in its construction. It's a sound she should carry to America with confidence. Kimbra's Converse A-Trak and Mark Foster collaboration was next, the live band adapting A-Trak's squeaky-clean synth to her usual earthier sound. There was a brief intermission as the kiwi queen ducked off-stage, reemerging onstage in dress two with almost no time lost. Samaritan was too slow, and saw the rear-stage screens filled with bizarre geometric shapes that kind of resembled microscopic bacteria. It didn't make much sense, but Withdraw was a powerful follow-up. In finale, the crowd was given a look at Kimbra's new track Come Into My Head. It's a harder, guitar-driven rock track that'll probably need a whole album to explore. She headed off-stage to pretty thunderous applause, and naturally reemerged grinning to sign off with Cameo Lover.