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The greatest trick the best bands ever pull is convincing every audience that they're their favorites. It's no easy feat. The road is monotonous, every club starts to look the same, one sea of bobbing heads becomes indistinguishable from the next. Generally, when you say you're just thrilled to be here in Washington, D.C. tonight, we usually know that you're following a routine, a script, and hoping that you filled in the blank with the right city. But when a band gets it right, either through Oscar-worthy acting, or just good old-fashioned sincerity, the crowd is in their pocket.
Such was the case last night with Matt and Kim. The two-person, beat-heavy, synth-pop Brooklyn duo whipped the gathering crowd into a dance-ready mood with a frenetic half hour set during which singer/keyboardist/lead hyperactive Matt Johnson must have gone out of his way to let the crowd know at least a half dozen times just how honored and excited and happy and just plain jumpin'-out-of-his-skin thrilled he was to be in Washington on this particular Monday night. It should have come off as corny, but the ear-to-ear grins that both he and Kim wore for the entirety of their set made you believe. You've never seen two people so elated to be on a stage.
Kim was like a flesh and blood incarnation of the Muppets' Animal, or maybe Keith Moon's long-lost little sister, wildly flailing arms and irrepressible exuberance, yet somehow she kept a rock-solid thumping beat through it all. And while we're assigning children's character totems, Matt did a more than passable Tigger, bouncing off the floor like there were springs in his legs, practically doing headstands on his keyboard, and punching the air so hard it seemed entirely conceivable he might scrape his knuckles on the 9:30's high ceilings. By the time they launched into the opening keyboard riff of Europe's cheese-tastic classic "The Final Countdown" near the end, they had the crowd believing so hard there were actually people disappointed that they didn't cover the song in its entirety.
This might have been a hard act to follow, if not for the fact that the act that was following was Cut Copy.
Cut Copy was the band that had sold out the club in a flash, and in the time between sets, the sellout crowd continued piling into the room until the floor was packed shoulder to shoulder. This was a get-to-know-your-neighbor night at the 9:30. Shake hands with everyone around you and apologize in advance for the impending bumping, jostling, and sweating all over each other. When the band took the stage, the crowd exploded, and as the instrumental intro segued into "Hearts On Fire", hundreds of people began jumping and dancing in unison, and all those stories I'd heard about seeing them being the best modern approximation of hanging out in Manchester at The Haçienda circa '84 suddenly seemed plausible.
The first couple of songs unleashed the crowd's will to dance strong out of the gate, and if you were almost anywhere on the floor, you were pretty much forced into movement, with bodies pressed into you on all sides. The band was also largely backing tracks at this point, with the most substantial live instrument being drums with a few synth and guitar flourishes thrown in above the throbbing taped portions. But any fears that the band might be largely on tape were soon allayed; instruments were strapped on after this, and most of the rest of the show was completely live, though the dancier tracks did tend to incorporate more prerecorded sequencing.
Much of Cut Copy's dynamic works on building a palpable sense of anticipation in the room. This isn't house music, with pulsating beats that ride through entire songs; Cut Copy are a pop band at their core, and the songs succeed on the strength of the songwriting: melodic verses transitioning into anthemic choruses with just the right amount of buildup between to have every sweaty body on the floor just itching for the hammer to drop on that chorus.
After a strong start out of the gate, the show lulled ever so slightly for a time; not a boring lull, but a slight recovery from the initial sprint, which included some older material from the first record, and a non-album track in "Sands of Time". But by just past the half-hour point, any cool down was over, and the band drove the crowd hard for most of the rest of the show. The set's end, coming less than an hour after the start, seemed tragically premature, but no one was under any illusion that they weren't returning. After all, "Lights and Music" hadn't been played yet, and every dancer on that floor had a reserve of energy saved up to go completely wild for that song, which the band delivered with fist-pumping intensity at the end of the three-song encore. The crowd was still left wanting far more, but few could have been disappointed with the sweat-soaked good time we'd been given.
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...and like *that*, they're gone...
The greatest trick a music reviewer ever pulled was convincing the world that "The Usual Suspects" didn't exist.
Yes, because I didn't think anyone would ever pick up that reference.
Looooooove Cut Copy, seen them twice. I must say the best Cut Copy performance I caught was a year or so ago at Black Cat. Their sound was crisp and vocals well balanced with the music. I saw them at 9:30 the performance prior to this one and I don’t believe their sound transposes well acoustically at 9:30. The songs sounded muffled and their vocals were whisper weak at times. Still, at their worst, Cut Copy is a great band. I'm sure it was a great show.
I agree with TX2DC. Their show last year at the Cat was considerably more energetic. After Matt & Kim last night, Cut Copy couldn't maintain the energy through their set. They are still a great band. Even their bad songs are pretty great, but I was a bit disappointed last night.
Me three with TX2DC. I was at the foot of the stage for the Black Cat show and it was incredible, though I had a helluva time at both 9:30 Club shows. Last night the acoustics were way off - most times the guitarists' vocals were totally inaudible. And I've gotta echo the reviewer's comments about the Hacienda - there were definitely a few moments with the lights and keyboards that felt like something out of "24 Hour Party People."