The Upstate Life

Thursday, March 29, 2007

TUL's Take: Cold War Kids @ 9:30 Club

We arrived at the club just in time to catch Delta Spirit, a band I had never heard of prior to last night but was definitely impressed with after they finished their 30 minute set. Their twangy sound reminded me a little bit of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, but actually talented. They also had a great amount of stage presence for an opening band that has just a sole EP released. Two of the musicians from Cold War Kids even helped perform Delta Spirit's closing number which was a nice touch. Mark my words, Delta Spirit is definitely a band to lookout for.

We missed Tokyo Police Club at the Black Cat a few months ago, so we were eagerly anticipating their set at the 9:30 last night. I only heard their Lesson in Crime EP prior to last night, but I have to admit, I wasn't that impressed. Don't get me wrong, Tokyo Police Club tore it up onstage and were into each song they performed, but I don't know if it was Dave Monks' vocals not mixed high enough or the muddy sound overall, but the band just didn't do it for me.

Just a little after 10, Cold War Kids came out to the roaring sold out crowd. Who knew that just five months after their show at DC9 that CWK would sellout the 9:30 Club? Besides TUL, the band appeared to be pretty amazed at this fact too when lead singer Nathan Willet pointed out that this was the largest crowd they've ever performed to. Of course, being the obnoxious people magnets we are, we somehow got situated behind this incredibly fat, drunken frat-boy asshat that thought he was at a Slayer concert. We're still perplexed as to how this obese douchebag maneuvered his way in front of us since we were at the same spot on the floor the entire evening, but his beer bottle in the back-pocket antics grew very tiring after, say, one minute.

Anyway, Cold War Kids kicked off things with "We Used to Vacation" to the delight of the audience, most of which have most likely never seen the band live before. Amazingly, this was our third time seeing CWK after we were briefly introduced to the group at Lolla last summer. The highlight of the hour-long set was during "Saint John" where every single band member from Delta Sprit and Tokyo Police Club came out onstage banging on some sort of percussive instrument which ranged from a huge marching band bass drum to an aluminum trash can lid. It was an incredible sight and even sounded good to boot. My friend Paul felt they should've performed this as the closer which I definitely agreed with. It was such a high point but was also performed just a few songs into their set, so it was kind of downhill after that. They picked things back up by starting the encore with "Hair Down" and closing the show with a cover of John Lennon's "Well Well Well" which was pretty cool to hear (Nathan's voice sounded eerily familiar to Lennon's during the shouting chorus). Overall, Cold War Kids put on another solid show, but I honestly had no idea that their appeal reached to the backwards hat-wearing college kid demographic. Who knew?

Posted by Brett at 4:08 PM |