After Ariel Pink’s huge musical fumble on NYE in NYC, including a poor performance and some strange, incoherent mumbling, the freak-folk phenomenon returned to the Big Apple for a second attempt at satisfying his fans.
Even with another performance to make-up for his first failure of a show, Ariel Pink still fails to have a successful performance.

The Village Voice compared his performance to a “circus”, and lucky for us who weren’t a part of the audience, gives us a play-by-play of the whole show:

“He is backed by no band whatsoever and sluggishly sings behind karaoke versions of his own songs. It’s as if we’ve caught him in his living room in pajamas on some strange drug trip we can’t even begin to understand. He lays down onstage, he walks into the crowd and sits next to someone, he climbs a lighting post till he’s brought down. It’s what you imagine may have happened to Kurt Cobain if he were still alive and performing in Vegas.

The entire crowd shares a skeptical look, not sure if they’re in on the joke or a part of it, if this is some Tony Clifton-style hoax where the real Ariel Pink is about to suddenly appear. Nope. “OK, next song!” Pink commands, waving his hand mid-verse as a DJ somewhere skips to the next backing track for him to sing along to. The crowd nervously laughs. The whole affair feels like some sort of meta-goof: “We actually got a bunch of companies to pay for THIS!!”

New year, New Ariel Pink?  Let’s hope 2011 isn’t a year of awkwardness for the folk singer.

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