Image via Josh

Someday, I’m going to sit down at this here Metblog and say something like, “The other day I saw a band with an enthusiastic tambourine player, but eh, it didn’t really charm me.” On that day you’ll have to hire a deprogrammer of some sort, because things will have gone seriously wrong, but that’s fine because that day is not today.

What I’m trying to say here is that Tokyo Police Club charmed me on Sunday night with their enthusiasm, just like they always do.

We were worried, sitting in Moe pre-show, that the sold-out room would be an unbearable sweatbox, because Tokyo Police Club always brings out the dance party in the crowd. The new capacity regulations handed us a decently-sized crowd ready to bounce spastically and nearly make out in spectacular displays of bromance, but still gave us enough room to move out of the way before said flailing landed me an elbow in the head. (Dudes of Seattle, I can’t possibly tell you enough how much I hate your elbows.) Still, the space could have had a lot more people in it and still have been a fairly comfortable crowd, and all that space just can’t be good for Neumos.

When the band arrived after a long Explosions in the Sky playalong soundcheck, I was a little concerned that said bromancers next to me were going to pass out with delight, but they handled themselves and Tokyo Police Club got right into it, firing up the seizure lighting and churning out their three-minute-long electro-spaz songs that change tempo and confuse the crowd’s rhythm mid-bounce. (Ok, actually, I sort of wished the seizure lighting would get off my lawn. Ow, my eyes. [Josh: But wasn't it helpful to have blackouts to let you know when the songs were over and flashing strobes to help keep the dancers on the beats?]) The sound at Neumos was noticeably better this weekend than it has been the last few times I’ve been there, so all of the layers of the songs squished together exactly like they’re supposed. The hero of the band, and my personal hero, is Graham Wright, who at Bumbershoot hit a beach ball with his tambourine without even missing a beat. He plays the keyboards and turns knobs and tambourines and occasionally screams like a mad indie rock scientist, and I want to keep him here in Seattle. [Josh: if ever I find myself forming a band, I call first dibs on the job of "electronics mastermind / backup shouting". Except for the fact that it would be creepily bromantic, we could start a fanclub. ]

Tokyo Police Club make ADD music for Ritalin-addled all-ages crowds, and that’s part of what makes them fun. They don’t need to be reinventing the post-punk wheel to make good songs and put on a good show. They’re not a headphone or balcony band, though–the best place to experience them is live and in the middle of (well, outskirts of) the superfans, the people who are hearing this kind of sound for the first time from these bands playing right now. [Josh: I agree, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been hopelessly addicted to a couple songs from Elephant Shell -- particularly the part in "Listen to the Math" (which might just be about an unexpected birth of an Australopithecine baby) where, after ever-so-subtly avoiding being in exactly the same place at the same time and occasionally fitting too many words into too small spaces for nearly half of the record, the beats and the lyrics find each other in the chorus.] Smoosh jumped onstage during the encore to dance around with the band, and I think that being on tour with all of them would probably feel a lot like summer vacation–the girls calling all of the shots and Graham with a mad scientist lab in the back of the van.

Related posts:

1. thursday agenda: tullycraft, tokyo police club, interpol
2. The Posies 20th Anniversary at Neumos
3. Lady rock stars are sexy: Visqueen and The Grates at Neumos
4. Battles at Neumos
5. Coconut Coolouts, Arthur & Yu, and the Thermals at Neumos