popwreckoning

Just as important as going to Austin to see music is going to Austin for the food. I’ve previously mentioned my affinity for breakfast tacos, but Friday I tried a different culture’s food. Not sure if it blasphemy to eat something that isn’t Mexican that close to Texas, but this morning called for Coffee with a capital “c.” No one does Coffee like the French. So Friday morning, I found myself at Le Café Crépe, being handed a menu by a Frenchman who was greeting me with a “Bonjour, mademoiselle.” Behind a glass window, employees were preparing mouth-watering crépes. Sadly, we were in a rush (as always), so we got our mochas to go and paired then with pain au chocolat, which is bread with chocolate. The flaky bread was fresh from the oven and filled with gooey chocolate. A light dousing on powdered sugar made this perfectly delectable. As we walked toward a first venue in considerably better moods, we promised to revisit the restaurant when we had more time, which we did Sunday morning before driving home.

After brushing some spilled powdered sugar off my shirt, I dashed into Emo’s for the mysterious Cults. For a long time, it was downright impossible to find out anything about this band and hopes of catching them on tour were slim to none. Fortunately, they seemed to have changed their mind on that as they have started touring more extensively and the band was practically everywhere at SXSW. The band is essentially the pop project of couple Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin, but they were joined by a full band for the performance. “Go Outside” was the only tune I really knew, but the lo-fi pop songs were all catchy and light-hearted…at least in sound. Lyrically, the duo likes to stay true to their name and often draw inspiration from cult leaders.

Chain Gang of 1974 was playing in another room at Emo’s just above Cults, so I went to check out this buzz band. Don’t be fooled by the 1974 in their name. They sound like a better fit for the 80s, but without going overboard on synths. There was an edge to the music, but also a danceable beat. If you’re like me and have heard the buzz about this band, but hadn’t checked them out before, start by giving their epic “Hold On” a listen.

Foster the People is a band that I was saying should be huge since last year. “Pumped Up Kicks” was my summer jam. Radio was a little slower to recognize its catchy awesomeness, so a lot of people are just discovering Foster the People. In the year since I’ve first learned of this band, I’ve only come to love them even more and seeing them live only solidified my love. At times this piano pop rock group sounds like Peter Bjorn and John and then other times it seems like they’ve got some Vampire Weekend thrown in, but with the subtlety of a group like Tennis. There are a lot of diverse influences working together very smoothly for this band, so if you’re lagging behind with the radio stations, get on it and check this band out asap.

Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt was a performance that was so epic that it got its own post. You can find that here. In short, the wild performance art band got us to run around the venue, freestyle dance in the middle of a clapping circle of strangers and jump up and down under a parachute while shouting, “We’re alive! We’re in love! We’ve got hope…just because!” Definitely gets the award for most memorable set of SXSW.

Reeling from the insanely fun experience of Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt, I stumbled out to Sixth Street a bit dazed and unsure of what to do next. How do you follow up a band with a parachute? I found myself wandering. First I traveled up to Mohawk, where Ted Leo was starting an acoustic set a little early. Crisp vocals and friendly tone demonstrated why this guy is a favorite of so many. From Ted Leo, I bounced to a tent next door where Glasser was taking the stage for the Rhapsody Party. A beautiful set, but one that couldn’t quite match the almost holy experience of seeing that band the night before at Central Presbyterian Church.

When I wandered out of Rhapsody, I honestly had every intention of giving the music watching a break and finding a spot to charge my phone. But then luck took me by Stubbs and a woman asked me to check-in on Foursquare in exchange for two passes to the exclusive Spin Party.  How can you pass up something as simple as that? I love social media!

Some middle age guy that I had never seen before was on the mainstage when I walked in. In awe of my sheer luck, it took me a moment to realize I knew the song being performed: “Touch Me once, touch me twice…” Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark was singing the song from one of my favorite soundtracks of all time (and no this was not the OMD performance at Stubbs with the camera boom incident). I might have dismissed OMD when I first walked in as some rando middle age dude, but he’s still got it. As an added bonus, Moby joined OMD on bass.

From OMD to DOM, the inside of Stubbs was getting packed for this buzz band. “Living in America,” has long been my jam. How can you resist the slinky chorus, “It’s so sexy to be living in America”?

And back outside, the Spin Party band I was most anxious for: The Kills. With Jack White in attendance at SXSW, there were some rumors of some special collab, but this was a straight up the Kills set. And I was ok with that. Allison Mosshart continues to steal the show no matter who she’s on the stage with – her vocals, her attitude – it’s just impossible not to watch her.

I left the Spin Party before TV on the Radio to chat with the duo behind Acrylics. Look for that interview soon on PopWreckoning. After my chat with Acrylics, I wandered through the Brooklyn Vegan Party to briefly watch the Dodos, Middle Brother and J. Mascis. I had heard a lot about J. Mascis, but I found the set kind of boring. The falsetto just wasn’t my thing. So I quickly left and went to catch a band from across the great pond that I knew would entertain: A Silent Film. I had the privilege of seeing this passionate piano rock band at their first US show ever back in Kansas City during the Fall. They seem a lot more confident now and delivered such a great set that people even asked for an encore and the venue guys, who had at first seemed very anti-encore to stay on schedule, even gave their approval because they were enjoying it so much. This band could easily draw some comparisons to Keane, but I find Keane rather sleepy. If anyone has heard of the UK’s Embrace, I would say that is a more apt comparison.

!!! might not be a band name that everyone can understand or say, but people have no problem understand the band’s music. The tent that !!! was a non-stop dance party. It kind of reminded me of seeing LCD Soundsystem at Bonnaroo – a little similar with the music and with the vibe.

I trekked far from Sixth to the Lustre Pearl to catch the next two acts. Noah and the Whale is a band that I had been eagerly anticipating for SXSW. Their romantic folk ballads had won my heart on recordings, but I had yet to see them live. They were supposed to play SXSW two years ago when I was here, but canceled. Then I was supposed to see them at Lollapalooza and they canceled. This year was to be my chance. Now, after finally getting the chance to see them, I think I’m ok that they canceled. Love their music, but they were one of the most boring bands of the festival. I didn’t need another Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt, but I just didn’t feel any energy or passion from these guys. I’d rather just go home and listen to my CDs because this particular live performance added nothing.

In contrast, the band that followed had plenty to watch on stage. Gayngs followed and this is autotune done right. This is a supergroup featuring members of Bon Iver, Doomtree, The Rosebuds and more. I don’t believe I counted all 23 members there for this performance, but they sure came close to a full group. The stage was packed. The soft-rock set got the audience dancing and I think any Austinites holding a grudge for the band’s unfortunate cancellation at ACL was quickly forgiven by this performance.

When I returned back to the main area of SXSW, I headed back to Stubbs for an old SXSW favorite of mine. The Airborne Toxic Event has this amazing ability of making viola look badass. Viola is not a badass instrument, but this band knows how to make it rock. And if one viola wasn’t enough, the band had another join the performance as part of a string quartet set up on the side of the stage. Awesome. They played through songs from their popular debut and several from their upcoming release. The Airborne Toxic Event never disappoints. But the rest of the night did disappoint. TATE would end up being my last of the night. After waiting in another line for an hour and encountering several venues that ended up being Badges only, I gave up on Friday and decided to call it an early night before the final day of SXSW.

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Check back for more to come from PopWreckoning’s Bethany and her experience at SXSW. You can see more photos from Day 3, Friday, March 18 below and click these links for Day 1 and Day 2:

I have good news and bad news. Bad news: Departing doesn’t blow the first Rural Alberta Advantage album out of the water like some of us were hoping. Good news: it’s still pretty great.

I often think of RAA as beat centric folk music. I’m pretty sure this has more to do with the way the drums on the first album, Hometowns, were placed higher in the mix than anything else. It was something that took me a half dozen listens to notice (never call me perceptive), but quickly became one of my favorite things about the album. It’s something that can be heard to a certain extent on the second song, “The Breakup”, but it’s mostly dispensed with here. “The Breakup” is a wistful (this band does a lot of wistful) song about the end of a relationship. The drums kick aggressively against a single mournful keyboard chord before the vocals. The way the lyrics are sung reminds me of old Death Cab. “I held you tight. We were waiting for the breakup.” My heart breaks a little each time I listen. These are sad songs sung as anthems.

My favorite track is number three, “Under the Knife”. Its folk music you can dance to, I swear to god. The beat plays against keyboards and the vocals are slightly nasal, but totally gorgeous. “Oh, the kids are never right. Oh, the kids will never find us”. I’ve listened to this song something like thirty times in the last couple weeks, and it’s already made its way on to one mix. It’s definitely the best thing here.

Track four is “Muscle Relaxants”, and finally a fast one. It’s a song about drugs and, of course, love. The electric guitars twitch, the drums kick, and the whole song kind of swings.

The only thing I don’t really like here is “Goodnight”, the final track. It feels a bit unfinished, and kind of annoys me. It’s an acoustic number that doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s a weak finish to a pretty enjoyable album.

This is recommended, for sure. It doesn’t really light anything on fire, but it’s pretty soothing. If RAA do the same thing for a couple more records, I might get annoyed, but as a sophomore record it works. They’ve found a sound and they’ve settled into it. I just hope next time they bring more to the table. I’d love to be as excited about their next album as I was about their first album.

Track Listing:
01 Two Lovers
02 The Breakup
03 Under the Knife
04 Muscle Relaxants
05 North Star
06 Stamp
07 Tornado ’87
08 Barnes’ Yard
09 Coldest Days
10 Good Night

Hey Champ will settle as “the third greatest thing to come out of Rockford [, Ill.]” (following, of course, Cheap Trick and a character from early 90′s hit television show “Blossom,” according to the band’s bio), but I’ll take the leap and say they’re the greatest electronic act to make their mark on 2010. 

These guys hooked me with “Cold Dust Girl,” the same single that grabbed Lupe Fiasco‘s attention and started their climb into fame. Within a month of hearing that track, Mr. Fiasco had the trio opening for him on tour. Within my first month of hearing “Cold Dust Girl,” the song hit over 50 plays in my iTunes and a new favorite band was cemented in my heart.

To my immense pleasure, the group’s first full-length album, Star, will hit stores on July 13. I’ve been listening to this album for a few weeks now, and it’s solid.

Straight up: my first couple listens left me a little disappointed. Most of what I’d heard from Hey Champ prior to Star were their DJ mixes (the Jet Set Mixtape and the Winner’s Circle Mixtape, available for free download here), which have a noticeably different tone than this album. I expected the same type of sound from Star, and only two of that album’s tracks, “Cold Dust Girl” and “Face Control” match up with the versions on Winner’s Circle. “Neverest” also crops up on Winner’s Circle, but remixed by Rawman, rather than the slower original version on Star.

So I took a couple weeks off from Hey Champ. Cleared my head of their mixes and reminded myself that most of the Mixtapes are the DJs’ mixes of other artists’ songs, which accounts for the major style difference. And then I gave Star another chance and, sure enough, I was very pleased.

Star delivers a healthy mix of faster songs suitable for club play and slower tracks perfect for late-night summer drives (oh how cliché). Though definitely electronic, a few tracks, like “Word=War,” occasionally rely on a harder rock sound. It’s an interesting juxtaposition not just throughout the album, but within individual songs themselves — and was the reasoning for part of my hesitancy to approve the album. As I’ve listened, though, those raucous bits have made their marks as endearing little Hey Champ signatures in the middle of long, synth-heavy runs.

For those with any taste at all for electronic or dance music, N.B. Hey Champ needs to make its way into your music collection pronto. For now, check the links above to grab their Mixes. Next month, get excited! and pick up Star. You’ll be happy, Hey Champ will be happy, your speakers will be happy. All-around, good deal.

Star hits stores July 13. You can pre-order the album now for just $4.99 here and immediately get the first five tracks for download.

Written by: Caitlin Dean

Wolves with lasers coming out of their eyes! Ferocious fangs everywhere! Men running around with swords! No, this is not the plot to some new action/horror movie. This was premise of the Too Fast for Love tour featuring Cobra Starship, 3oh!3, Travie McCoy and the Lazarus Project and I Fight Dragon. And yes, that photo above does brilliantly combine the 3oh!3 hands with the Cobra fangs. HOLLA!!!

Chicago’s I Fight Dragons had the most to prove opening for acts that had been part of the same music family for quite some time and playing for a crowd that hadn’t heard too much about them. Before the group even came out, video screens flashed old school gaming images. The band triumphantly emerged to music that even Zelda would have been jealous of and they jumped into a set filled with rock infused with NES sounds. The product was a set that matched the sound and energy of bands such as Motion City Soundtrack (although, MCS is untouchable when it comes to lyrical quality). I Fight Dragons’ drummer was celebrating his 21st at the show, so they took some time to call him out and give him a solo on the foot gaming-pad. To prove that they weren’t just playing games and really had jerry-rigged a Rockband guitar to play like a cross between a real guitar and a synthesizer, they free styled a fun jam before entering their final number.

I Fight Dragons:

Then the dynamic Travie McCoy and the Lazarus Project took to the stage. And no, ‘Travie’ is not a typo for those who know him better for his time fronting Gym Class Heroes as ‘Travis.’ I guess the ‘Travie’ moniker fits the style of his new act a little better. Think Gym Class, but more soulful and jazzy. Then, picture Travie in suspenders and bowties, but still with all the tattoos and piercings and you have the vibe of this new act. To be honest, Travie could be yodelling and he’d still be enjoyable to watch — he has some of the most spectacular facial expressions you could ever see on a performer. Plus, he’s witty: “Who likes to be supabad? Like Michael Cera Superbad? This one’s for you.”

When the debut Lazarus album drops, I doubt GCH fans will have anything negative to say.

Travie McCoy and the Lazarus Project Set List:
Intro
Dr. Feelgood
Critical
Bad by Myself
We’ll Be Alright
Supabad
Money/Billionaire
Can The Drummer Get Some?
Need You

As much as the misogynistic lyrics (I’m sure we’re all familiar with the “Shush girl, shut your lips; do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips,” by now.) and the overly cock-y attitudes might make you want to hate Colorado’s 3oh!3, they’re actually quite lovable. Seriously. I’m not joking. The come skipping out, throwing their own hand signs up and immediately get audiences jumping along with them. Whether you heard their songs or not, they’re easy to singalong with and so catchy, you’d find yourself doing that even if you didn’t want to sing. 3oh!3 are bringing out some of their new songs off their upcoming summer release, and since you don’t have suffer through Ke$sha, even those songs are fun, although, not quite as catchy as their older material. Plus, remember when I mentioned wolves with laser beams at the beginning? 3oh!3 has mother-fucking wolves with laser beams and if for some reason you don’t immediately spot them, they’ll point the critters out and sing plenty of tunes about them.

3oh!3:

3oh!3 Set list:
Beaumont
Starstrukk
Punkbitch
My First Kiss
I’m Not Your Boyfriend
Richman
House Party
Touchin on My
I Can’t Do It Alone
Colorado Sunshine
Chokechain
Don’t Dance
Don’t Trust Me

Cobra Starship admits that they’re ‘guilty pleasures,’ and if you were a fan of Midtown, you probably aren’t going to be too thrilled by Gabe Saporta‘s current project. However, if you love keytar, heavy dance beats and anything related to Samuel L. Jackson, then you might enjoy Cobra Starship. This is a group you do want to approach fresh with a relaxed attitude because as I said and will repeat: this is not Midtown. Why am I repeating? I think a lot of people kind of forget that and take it out on the band. Now, while I can see why the goofy lyrics or Gabe’s intense personality might be a turn off for some people; and stunts like this sour reaction in the video below to a kid flipping the band off might either make a person love or hate Cobra Starship, just remember. They came here to make you dance tonight. So seriously. Relax, enjoy the light show, toss your fangs up and just dance…or get off the dancefloor.

Cobra Starship (“Snakes on a Plane” preceded by Gabe reacting to a kid giving him the finger):

Cobra Starship Set List:
Intro/City
Smash It Up
Kiss My Sass
Kinda Guy
Summertime
Snakes
Paparazzi
Dancing
Hot Mess
Guilty Pleasure
//
Good Girls Go Bad

Today, May 18, marks the worldwide release of LCD Soundsystem‘s purported final release: This Is Happening.

Our reviewer, Ali says that James Murphy goes out with bang on this album. There are plenty of great tracks with which to dance and sing along. Read his full review here.

To celebrate the release of the album, we’re giving away an exclusive LCD Soundsystem print and a copy of the new album. All you have to do to enter is comment and tell us what your favorite dance move is when you’re dancing to LCD Soundsystem. Entries must use a valid email address and you must live in the US to enter (sorry out-of-country readers). We’ll pick a winner Friday, May 21 at 6 p.m. CDT from the entries.

Of course, even if you don’t win, you can and should pick up the album at local stores and on iTunes. The link to buy it on iTunes is here.

And so it comes to LCD Soundsystem‘s third and purported final album. When you’re James Murphy and your previous musical work is the much adored Sound of Silver and you follow it up with your final piece of art, you better go out with a bang. And from the get go Mr. Murphy understands this fact and hesitates not to throw a handful of glitter and confetti into the visual components of our ears.

This Is Happening was not recorded in New York’s DFA studios but rather the sprawling mansion of producer Rick Rubin. And lets clear up an important fact before we discuss and delve into the finiteness of this album. It’s no Sound of Silver, but it doesn’t need to be. When you put out an album that is that sonically impressive, both lyrically and melodically, you don’t need your next one to be as such. You’ve cemented your greatness and your place in the world’s musical oeuvre. All you need to do is underline the fact that you can still craft a few fantastic tunes and that your talent isn’t limited to a fluke. That’s exactly what This Is Happening does. It doesn’t try to be better than its predecessor, but it sure comes close.

The album starts off with a subtle sneakiness with “Dance Yrself Clean.” The track begins and continues for a while to be a slow, quiet puff of breath: a “What, I can’t hear you?” number. You think to yourself, “LCD Soundsystem makes dance music. What is this nonsense?” And your heart sinks a little to think Mr. Murphy has faulted you. The song pitter-patters a bit, joined by spoken vocals, but then the track starts to pick up a little, with soft whistling keyboards that run like a river through the quiet. You feel there might be hope and then when 3:08 hits you are jolted like a mother f*cker with probably the best dance music in a long time. A smack of snare drums that are quickly quenched by some of the deepest fuzzed out synths this side of downtown. The song is a dancefloor cracker. Murphy starts to sing with a “I just woke up from a boozy night” voice and firmly tells you to “Dance yourself clean” from such an evening and perhaps, aptly for him, to take stock of his place in the musical scene as a 40 year old man, as he sings: “Everybody’s getting younger/It’s the end of an era, it’s true.” Amongst this philosophical question of age and place, amongst the filthy percussion, also lies a romantic tune: “Break me into bigger pieces/So some of me is home with you,” a nice juxtaposition between the music and lyrics. “Dance Yrself Clean” is a winner and gets you ready for the rest.

The album follows with “Drunk Girls,” a fun-filled track of nonsense about night out on the town shenanigans, where lacking in lyrics and vocals it makes up in a rocking your head kind of musical style. “One Touch” harks back to Sound of Silver‘s “Get Innocuous”; what an 8 bit LCD Soundsystem video game would sound like. “All I Want” is a bruising sentimentality, mixing rock and dance, evoking the guitar work from Bowie‘s “Heroes,” with Murphy youthfully pouring out thoughts over a doomed relationship: “All I want is your pity/Oh all I want are your bitter tears.” It is a beautiful track with a softness that permeates through the callousness of the singer.

“All I Want” leads into another soft stunner, the album’s second best track, “I Can Change,” which showcases the best singing we’ve heard from Murphy since “All My Friends.” Mr. Murphy needs to croon us like this more often because it really is a wonderful vox box. He fills the track with bubbling synthesizers, a la Gary Numan‘s “Cars,” while coaxing a young thing, “I can change, I can change, if it helps you fall in love.” The song also starts off with some of the best lyrics I’ve heard in a while, “Tell me a line/Make it easy for me/Open your arms/Dance with me until I feel alright.”

“Hit” opens with a sparkle of Asian infused melodies eventually being drowned out by a thick, slobbering bass, as Murphy belts his Fuck You ode to record labels, “You wanted a hit/Well this is how we do hits/You wanted a hit/But that’s not what we do/So leave us alone”. The following two tracks, “Pow Wow” and “Somebody’s Calling Me,” though musically well composed, leave something to be desired.

This Is Happening ends with “What You Need,” and so comes the close of LCD Soundsystem’s offerings to the world, and it closes perfectly, with a neat, nostalgic period. The track perfectly dissipates Murphy’s thoughts over the years of his and his bands stature and significance in the music world, the idea of aging and coming to grips with moving on to the next stages of life, but pondering what sort of legacy was left and what the future holds, leaving us with…”You might forget/Forget the sound of our voice/Still you should not forget, yet/Don’t forget the things that we laughed about.”

This Is Happening will be released on May 17, 2010.

Track Listing:
1. Dance Yrself Clean
2. Drunk Girls
3. One Touch
4. All I Want
5. I Can Change
6. You Wanted A Hit
7. Pow Pow
8. Somebody’s Calling Me
9. Home

Fol Chen‘s “In Ruins” has already been making its way around the Hype Machine and blog circuit. It’s a great dance track that just begged for remixing. 

Fol Chen has since gathered together an EP collection of “In Ruins” remixes and is offering them for free download at folchen.com.

The song is off of the group’s upcoming sophomore release, Part II: the New December due out in early July.

. “In Ruins” – Fol Chen

Tour Dates:
04/27 San Francisco, CA Slim’s *
04/29 Portland, OR Hawthorne Theatre *
04/30 Vancouver, BC VenueCanada *
05/01 Seattle, WA Neumo’s *
07/06 Los Angeles, CA The Echo – Album release show!
07/13 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue *
07/14 Madison, WI High Noon Saloon *
07/15 Milwaukee, WI Turner Hall *
07/17 Detroit, MI Magic Stick *
07/18 Newport, KY The Southgate House *
07/20 Nashville, TN Exit / In *
07/21 Bloomington, IN Rhino’s Youth Center *
07/22 St. Louis, MO Firebird *
07/23 Lawrence, KS Bottleneck *
07/24 Denver, CO Bluebird *
* = w/ Liars

Pretty Lights (the electronic-based duo Derek Vincent Smith and drummer Cory Eberhard) made a stop in Pittsburgh last Tuesday night, and damn, did they live up to their name.

I went in a newcomer to the band – I had only heard two songs before I stepped foot into Mr. Small’s Theatre that night, so I was a little unsure of what to expect. Let me tell you – even if the music had been completely intolerable, the light show alone would have been enough to keep me fixated the entire evening. However, the music itself was equally as impressive, if not better, than their aesthetics.

I’ll be the first to admit – I’m not a dancer – I’m one of those attendees you see at a concert standing perfectly still, wide-eyed and full of awe, just taking everything in. Occasionally you’ll see me tapping my foot, or bobbing my head, but that’s about as far as it goes. Not this time. After the allotted photo time had passed, I checked my equipment behind the bar, ran to the middle of the floor, and shook my stuff like there was no tomorrow. The pumping beats and jazzy overtones were just too hard to resist.

Highlights of the show included the song “I Can See It In Your Face” (which was featured on PopWreckoning’s mp3 Music Minute in February), and their finale – a cover of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes.”

All in all, a spectacular show in every respect. If Pretty Lights is playing a show anywhere near you – even if you’re not familiar with their music (as I was myself) – do yourself a favor and go. It’s nearly impossible to describe the magnificence of the experience in words, but if you still need a little encouragement, the following pictures should give a small sampling of the beauty that is Pretty Lights.

The last time I saw Miike Snow perform there were a few thousand people dancing at an outdoor stage for a late afternoon set at Lollapalooza. The last time Miike Snow played KC, it was for a smaller, but still large crowd at a packed, free outdoor show. So I should not have been surprised that when Miike Snow announced an indoor concert at a bar that holds less than 200 people that it would sell out. Yet, like an idiot, I waited too long and when I went to go buy a ticket I was regrettably under the belief that I was out of luck.

Well, the good lords of the dance (not to be confused with this lord of the dance) must have been with me when I on a whim decided to swing by the Record Bar to see if I really was SOL the night of this show. A kind bouncer helped get us in just in time for the set.

Electro beats filled the tiny venue and as the clicks and clacks of the looped guitar and drums wafted through the place with the smoke, bodies slowly began moving in rhythm. It was as close as Kansas City ever seems to get to dancing, which is really saying something about the power of this music. At first the Swedes (Miike Snow is a band – not a person, if you didn’t already know) opted to play in white masks, adding to the ambiance and mysteriousness of their tunes, but with time, the guys finally peeled the masks off, but by that point, they were no longer needed to set the mood.

The set had a new song or two thrown in, but for the most part stuck to variations off tunes from their self-titled album. Popular radio single “Animal” finished the evening off in a version of the song that was about three times its normal length and the final run of the chorus, “I change shapes just to hide in this place, but I’m still, I’m still an animal. Nobody knows it but me when I slip, yeah I slip, I’m still an animal,” continually got faster and faster forcing the dancing audience to almost end as though running in place.

My only real disappointment was that with such an epic rendition of “Animal,” the return for a slowed down encore, though appreciated, was drab after the craziness that the encore had to follow. But who can really complain when a great band gives you even more music? If you get a chance to catch a show on this tour, buy your tickets now. I doubt this group will continue to play such small venues much longer.

Cha cha slide, Macarena, Soulja Boy, but now there might be an indie dance you don’t have to feel guilty knowing all the moves too. Tegan & Sara just released a new video for “Alligator” and not only is it complete with confetti-made igloos, but it also features what maybe the next dance sensation. Who knows?