the Faint + Ratatat // the Showbox // 2 December 2006

It’s Saturday night at the Showbox and the whole place has been turned into a showroom for Camel cigarettes. They missed the memo about the smoking ban and have redecorated with glowing backlit signs, stand-up displays with freebies, and projections on the wall complete with requisite warnings from the Surgeon General. In the upstairs bar, the seating area has been transformed to a V.I.P. lounge with walls of LCD televisions broadcasting sexy scenes of the joys of smoking. Honestly, the setup challenges last year’s Strangercrombie for bizarre makeovers.

When I arrive Ratatat are halfway through their set. [Again, with the unpredictable scheduling at the Showbox!] The guitars a rolling in front of low-tech screensaver visualizations. I think I recommended this and mentioned the word “blippy”, which is actually a lie if I think about it. More like multilayered phased waves of colliding guitars under chasing synth beats. It gets people’s shoulders moving. There are explosive white flashes of light. As the set reaches its climax, the synth guy climbs on the bench, raising a shaker above his head. The music swells, a guitar player bangs his head for a while until the Ratatat logo fills the screen to signal the end of their half of the show.

Between sets, DJ Colby plays, J.T. brings sexy back. They take down the square screen, the crowd turns over, with waves escaping outside, maybe to smoke some free samples.

By the time the lights dim, the room has filled again. Out from the swirling spotlights and in front of the retro video feeds step a menagerie of post-hipster haircuts. As they start playing to waves of anticipatory applause, it seems that they should have arrived on a spaceship from somewhere very far away. I want to say another country, but that seems too close. The answer, in fact, is Omaha, Nebraska.

It takes a few moments to get over the fact of a Saddle Creek band with a light show. Let’s just admit that I have a certain idea about that label. And that lazy stereotype is informed almost entirely by Bright Eyes (who, for the record, I love.). So, although it shouldn’t have, the spectacular production, the flashing lights, the death metal guitar player, the song-specific videos come as a surprise.

Rumor has it that the band has been working on a follow-up to Wet From Birth, which I also admit to not having listened to in full. So it’s hard to say for certain whether they are previews of things to come, but they claim to be playing a lot of new songs tonight. With the exception of one mellower, pulsing keyboard-centric, arpeggio-laden, nicely melodic track at the midpoint, few sound like dramatic departures.

Dancing in the crowd comes in fits and starts. Certain disco lines over low-slung druggy guitar lines reliably hook the audience into jumping, clapping, causing the floor to bounce slightly. It’s during these moments, with the colored lights and absurdist videos flashing and a crowd of stupid and happily flailing people, that the songs make the most sense as the lyrics describe odd reflections of modern existence over a waves of crowd movement.

While everyone seems to be having fun, the biggest reaction is to the older songs. Toward the end of the set, after the already enthusiastic response to “Desperate Guys”, the explosive and glitchy intro to “Glass Danse” [mp3] multiplies the energy levels and the tide of goodwill continues through the closing hit from Blank Wave Arcade, “Worked Up So Sexual” [mp3]. Of course, people stick around, screaming for more as if their lives depend on it and bring the band back out for three more. Among all of their videos — the breakdancers, paranoid news anchors, soaring owls, lip-synching Marilyn — I think my favorite is the one that accompanied their final song, “Agenda Suicide” . Apparently its animated portrayal of pill-popping corporate existence was too much for MTV. If you missed it live, thank your lucky stars for the internet [youtube].