Roctoberfest: Week 1 Continues

The xx @ 9:30 Club

I was able to get tickets to this sold out show relatively early and had been anticipating it for quite some time as I had already missed The xx play at the Sixth and I Synagogue, and open for Hot Chip at 9:30. I got into The xx at the beginning of the year having just missed the hype of 2009. I love their debut album. Subversive, dark, with not a single wasted note. It was surprising that such a young band had developed such a mature sound.

I was surprised at how loud the band could get. The band came on stage with just three members (missing second guitarist/keyboardist, Baria Qureshi) and played a heavily expanded version of the album's Intro. I was expecting them to sound virtually exactly the same as the album with a few embellishments here and there; and I was not surprised. The concert itself was played very well, and I had a great time. Is it an act I feel I need to see again? Not likely (especially if rumors of their breakup are true). Highlights included Intro, Islands, and Stars. The lighting played heavily on the interplay between Romy and Oliver with spots trading between the two as they sang. It was a neat trick, but slightly overplayed.

Ratatat and Dom @ 9:30 Club

It was slightly embarrassing to return to 9:30 two days later for another show and have the ticket taker recognize me. I had just had two slices of pizza off D.C. Slices' food truck at the BYT Curbside Cook Off. My companion was feeling somewhat sick, but knew he would have caught major shit from me had he bailed. He toughed it out and we went to the show anyway.

Full disclosure about my knowledge of Dom: I knew barely anything about them outside having listened to their EP a few times during the summer. I thought I had heard from someone that they were a band from New Zealand and frankly, the lead singer sounded like a girl to me on the album. That being said, I was confused when a bunch of what looked to be like male tweens stepped on stage and announced they were from Worcester, Massachusetts. Their sound was somewhat harder than off the album (which I liked) and made most of their songs unrecognizable to me. At this point, I just wrote it off to a case of mistaken identity, and perhaps there were just two bands touring with that name. If the band was really from New Zealand then I don't think it would be out of the realm of possibility to have two bands touring the with same name. I was of course wrong. When the band closed with Living in America it became clear the bands were one in the same, and I had just gotten some bad information.

I had never been to a Ratatat show before, or anything remotely resembling an electropop show before. I don't usually listen to a whole lot of instrumental music, but I had heard too many good things about their shows that I just had to check them out. I had only started listening to their most recent album, which I actually do find pretty good. We ran into two of our friends while at the concert only to have them swept away later by the crushing wave of bodies that started moving as soon as the music started. One of them looked completely miserable as she was being pressed between two large gentleman and a couple that had pushed their way to the front only to stop directly in front of her. We made an attempt to shove directly in front of them. Having just done the same thing, it was funny to see them struggle with the desire to call us out but realizing they could not do so without incriminating themselves. Alas, the crowds proved too crazy for our friend and she relegated herself to the bar area while Pete and I soldiered on.

The visuals during a Ratatat show are strange and absurd ranging from large jungle cats, to foppish dandies playing stringed instruments, to big bootie hoes shaking it all on transparent plastic walls that allowed for projections from behind. I found the most entertaining parts of the show to be when both members engaged in drum duets at the front of the stage. The show was exhausting, but super fun. Again, another show I feel like I don't need to revisit now that I've had the experience though.