East Vancouver’s latest buzzed about export, Japandroids, were determined to have a good time in D.C. The first (and second and fifth, etc.) thing they said to the audience was how much their short set in Philly had sucked the night before and how tonight they were determined to play better and play for longer.

This is easier said than done for most bands touring on the strength of a debut LP, especially one that’s only eight songs long. But whereas some debut artists resort to singing multiple covers or test out new and relatively unpracticed material, Japandroids actually have two prior EPs of (mostly) original material. They’ve clearly been playing those songs to the minimalist rock loving population of the Pacific Northwest for some time, so it was easy for them to fill out an hour-long set and still leave the audience asking for multiple tracks when the DC9 sound engineer told them, “One more song.” They carried themselves in a demeanor that was refreshingly jovial, personable and unforced, and they didn’t sound or play with any of the insecurities of a “new” band.

There’s something beautiful about a band for whom the music is a complete personality match. The songs on Post-Nothing are fun and simple tunes about picking up girls, skipping town and coming of age, complete with shredding made for easy headbanging and catchy drum fills made for easy leg-pounding. That vibe, of carefree young 20-somethings starting to figure out what the world is like and having a damn good time doing it, permeated every aspect of their set, from singer Brian King’s climbs onto the DC9 monitors to the old family Christmas photo taped onto his guitar.

Japandroids might be the most jovial act that’s come into DC9 in recent memory, repeatedly introducing themselves by their first names as if they were trying to meet everyone interested in the U.S. face to face. The audience bought into it, welcoming the duo as if they were welcoming new friends from college into their hometown. When King asked for someone to fill his drink ticket before “Young Hearts Spark Fire,” somebody did. When he asked for the guys to throw their shirts at drummer David Prowse during one of his turns on the mic, somebody did (thankfully, nobody obliged King’s request for the ladies to throw their shirts during “Crazy/Forever.”) One got the distinct impression that if Prowse and King had announced that they needed a couch to crash on, more than one member of the audience would’ve gladly offered up a spare futon.

But no amount of camaraderie would have worked for Japandroids had there not been some level of mastery in the music. They ended their set with a perfectly distortion-heavy version of mclusky’s “To Hell With Good Intentions,” so no accusing these guys of bad taste, either.