This is the fourth installment in my Friday Guest Blogger gig over at XPN's 995 Most Memorable Musical Moments Blog. Get with this!
I was almost starting to feel bad for Tokyo Police Club. Here they were, headlining the very-important Thursday night bill at Johnny Brenda's. Yet in the space of 12 hours, the opening band on the bill, Vampire Weekend, had not only sucked up all the critical buzz, but had the Philly indie/blog scene's musical tastemaker riding the express bus to Crushville.
And we don’t know what else to say: It’s love. We spent a whole afternoon earlier this week scouring the web for as many of their mp3s as we could track down, and then pushing them on everyone who would listen. Everyone who did stopped in their tracks.
Yeesh. And you thought it was just the weather making people shvitz. By dinnertime, the show was so sold out even major Philly scenesters were left standing in the rain on Frankford Ave., unable to finagle a list spot or some other way inside. At this point, I'm feeling pretty smug about having bought my pair of tickets weeks ago, though wondering if I was the only person in the city who was actually going to this show to see Tokyo Police Club.
Well, I won't say Vampire Weekend stopped me in my tracks, but it did have me dancing, interested in their sound, and thinking about where all this buzz was going to take these guys next. "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" isn't just one of their song titles, it's a pretty good descriptor for their sound, which seems to bounce and float at the same time. It sounds utterly white and yet African-esque, the extract of a musical influence that runs like a bead of sweat from Graceland, trickles down through Dave Matthews, and drips onto the pages of the J.Crew catalog from which the band members obviously order their clothes. (White belt = Out, Brown Braided = Back, baby!)
Earlier in the night, I'd listened to TPC on the radio with Josh T., and I knew they were heading into sold-out dates at the Bowery Ballroom and Maxwell's, but for a second I wondered how much of the crowd would stick around to hear them in Philly.
I'm pleased to say the crowd did not thin appreciably after Vampire Weekend, nor did everyone go streaming for the exits after Ra-Ra Riot's ra-ra-rousing set (sorry), and everyone in the place went home in need of a good shower and a change of clothes.
Tokyo Police Club got the full JB's treatment, with shouting out of song titles, a couple of drunk dudes invading others' personal space down in front, and beads of sweat flying everywhere. One of the things I like about this band is how, on songs like "Cut Cut Paste" and "Box," they manage to pack so much into such a brief burst of music. Even their slow jam/trippy love song, "La Ferrasie," doesn't hit the three-minute mark.
They tore through their set, covering most of the content of EPs A Lesson In Crime and Smith and a handful of new songs, propelled by David Monks' punchy bass, Greg Alsop's insistent drumming and the handclaps, shouts and abrupt endings ("Shoulders & Arms," "Be Good") that make their aerobic-sprint songs really interesting and fun.
[Photos by Amy Z. Quinn]