As I went up the steps to the Dance Party show at the Black Cat, I could hear the noise pouring out of the swinging doors. The stairwell echoed with shrill cheers of teenage girls, like a bygone episode of TRL. Instead of a Carson Daily or hot pop singer, lead singer Mick Coogan stood his ground in a bright lime green shirt. He thrust his guitar to and fro, shaking furiously onstage and delivering incomprehensible lyrics in a fit of epileptic proportions. Lead guitarist Kevin Bayly danced his fingers across his guitar as he leaned towards Mick in anticipation.
Working the crowd into jumping, flailing and laughing frenzy, The Dance Party hit their stride with “Nintendo Power,” a power chord ballad of distorted guitars and punchy drums. The minute-long buildup was tight, adorned with Mick’s thin, itchy vocals and an evocative lyrical collage of spaceships, consuming paper in dreams, and apocalypse. Dance Party climaxed with an endless refrain over Mick’s declaring “Days I never wasted! It’s midnite and we’re wasted!”
