Monday, April 09, 2007

Cold War Kids at the Bowery Ball Room

So thanks to Druglas, I caught Delta Spirit, Tokyo Police Club, and Cold War Kids at the Bowery Ballroom last night. Aside from falling asleep, missing the Tarrytown stop, and leaving a brand new Tokyo Police Club shirt on the train, the night was a success. Delta Spirit opened about twenty minutes after we arrived, with a ton of plaid and rhythym. Honestly, any band that makes use of a converted trash can lid / tambourine is okay in my book. Maybe it's my love of Chuck Norris or maybe it's my love of Gin, but I couldn't stop referring to the band as Delta Force.



I hadn't heard them before the show, but I definitely will be keeping tabs on them from now on. They didn't give the titles for any of their songs that I can recall (doesn't mean they didn't actually say the song titles), so I did a little digging around and came across two tracks that I really enjoyed from their set, "Streetwalker" and "Gimme Some Motivation".



Tokyo Police Club hit the stage after just a quick break between sets and were frenetic and abrupt in the most wonderful way possible. I enjoyed their set so much I really wish that I hadn't stayed away from their show with Ted Leo last summer, after the rain hit. Although I enjoy their recorded stuff, they're definitely a band whose records just cannot express how much fun they are live. Try giving their daytrotter session a listen for the closest example the internet can give you.


My only real issue with their set was the hipster audience. No matter how great the opening bands are, nobody ever dances for anyone but the headliner. It drives me crazy to see all those people standing still while I flail about.


Cold War Kids were fucking ace. The highlight of the entire show was definitely "Saint John", where they closed out the show by having everyone and their mother from the tour coming out on stage to rock with some form of percussion or another. Some guy we met outside swiped a tambourine and a maraca off of the stage afterwards and was leading singalongs with them. When we joined in, he gave me the maraca, and I felt kind of guilty with a maraca stolen from the band. He wasn't giving it back if I turned it down though, so I shook it for a while, then tucked it into my jacket when my gin soaked brain couldn't take that bean shakin sound anymore. The Cold War Kids played a few new songs, all of which were enjoyable, but didn't really rock quite as hard as some of the strong points in the set. I couldn't give you the whole set off the top of my head, but "Red Wine, Success", "Passing the Hat", "Hospital Beds", "Hang Me Out to Dry", and "We Used to Vacation" were all excellently executed. Especially that last one.

1 comment:

Passion of the Weiss said...

Sounds like a cool show. CWK are a really good live band and always have been. The first time I saw them they were complete nobodies and you could tell that they were going to be big.
nice post.