Björk

Photo by John Anderson

Björk

Touring with a tenpiece, all-female, Icelandic brass section, outfitted in DayGlo dresses and Blade Runner-esque face paint, plus beat yielder Damian Taylor, keyman Jonas Sen, and drummer Chris Corsano as her sort of Parliament Funkadelic, Björk skipped onstage wearing matching war paint, a ruffled, gold bag-dress, and matching gold leggings. The electro-grunts of opener "Innocence," from her latest release, Volta, unpunctuated the singer's first time in Austin since her days with Icelandic punks the Sugarcubes. And she made sure we remembered; early in the set, she shot what looked like gold silly string out of her dress. The brass section added most to earlier material like "Hunter" and especially the emotional "Jóga." Post's "I Miss You" and "Hyper-Ballad" also sounded fuller and brighter, Björk's voice still a thing of elastic wonderment. She dipped into Vespertine for "Hidden Place" and Medulla for "Pleasure Is All Mine," the flow of the 90-minute spectacle ebbing somewhat, though "Army of Me" killed live as Taylor pumped up the volume and caused Björk to twitch involuntarily. Then came the main-stage lasers, green rays shooting into the night sky. A piece of equipment that blew up onstage also caused fireworks. Otherwise, there wasn't much banter from the headliner, aside from regular thank yous (which sounded adorably like "sink-yoo"), and half the throng left before encore closer "Declare Independence," which featured Taylor on Reactable, a glowing round device with touch-manipulated buttons that's only the second in existence. The true-blues stayed until confetti shot from the stage. If she could have tore the roof off the sucker, she would have.