Question marks dominate Utrecht for four days, as that seems to be the official logo of the Le Guess Who? festival. LGW? does not take place in one venue, and as a matter of fact, Carla Bozulich is playing at the other side of the railroad tracks from where the posh, new Tivoli building (bombarded as this year’s main venue) is situated. It surely looks, feels, and sounds like the other side of the tracks tonight, as the icey venue (never was a sweater so needed) is positioned smack down in the middle of an industrial area, and the inside of it looks about as abandoned as the outside does just a mere five minutes before Bozulich is scheduled to play.

When the American musician comes on, though, a nice little crowd has gathered, which she consecutively doesn’t acknowledge, acknowledges with a pathetic Thank you, acknowledges with a heartfelt Thank you for coming early, to a forceful Fucking Thank You! As a matter of fact, she finishes the gig by saying that she’s got only one thing to say, which is Fuck, although she does mutter that she loves us for coming to the last gig of her tour shortly after that. She also sneaks in a comment about how much she wants to introduce one of her songs by showing her vagina. Though she acknowledges that it might be better if we all just feeeelll the song, you know?

From a distance you would have mistaken her for a teacher at a Catholic College, as she is dressed in a long, black dress with a white collar. Punk, though, doesn’t have a dress code, and certainly not the jeans-with-holes one some people might have you believe. Her set starts out with the traditional banging percussion and four-chord action one might know from punk, and she certainly isn’t bothered by trifle things like hitting notes, being audible, or actually singing, though later on she will show off all of those skills, and then some. 

Don’t be fooled by the way she stumbles across the stage, or the way she uses a little device to distort her vocals. Near the end she is singing intricate, experimental ballads that include flutes, backing vocals, and her softly tapping the side of her guitar to get the exact sound that she envisions. Her rendition of ‘Artificial Lamb’ (made under her Evangelista moniker) is a good example of that. Sure, she ends with “One Hard Man” off of her new album, which played live is a bit more punky and which knocks all the intricate subtleties of the few songs before right out of the window again (as that song is anything but subtle). However, that only fits the eclecticness of not only her set, but of the entire festival. Fucking thank you, indeed.

That Xiu Xiu would ever come back to perform in Utrecht is a slight miracle in itself. Today he again taps out of his very soul and heart, being so emotive that you can imagine that if something would ever go wrong, he would have a hard time restraining himself. Que flashback to a couple of years ago, where the band was maligned by technical difficulties of all imaginable kinds, so much so that the microphone shocked him like an electric eel (ooh girl!). At one point the poor man was so fed up he kicked the water bottle in front of him into the audience, which he instantly regretted, and which caused a wave of guilt to set in. Needless to say, that particular gig was beyond saving (and understandably so).

This time, not so much, thankfully. Quirky as all get out, the sound check includes him meowing to see if the microphone is working. After the obligatory-yet-admittedly-out-there good luck tradition between him and his sole band member he immediately dives headlong into a rendition of ‘Stupid in the Dark’, which includes the line that “People are useless in the moonlight”, though, admittedly, “People are meant to be loved” as well. Which is the juxtaposition that runs throughout the whole set, basically, as love and hate, self-loathing and being comfortable with yourself all lie so very close to each other. 

The band will never be something for everyone, the electronical music they put on display combined with the performance itself is simply too outside the box for that. At points they are working with rather danceable, sometimes even traditional sounding beats, but the next moment he strings the microphone chord around his neck and starts narrating a story with no regard (or a whole lot of regard) for the volume of his voice. From music-with-a-slight-twist to performance art, whatever they do, it all does come straight out of, especially, his inner core. Cathartic it does seem to be, and luckily the involuntary electric shock therapy that reared its head into the set a few years ago doesn’t make an unwelcome return, which makes it a better night for both audience and artist alike.