Written by DCist contributor Mary Cappabianca

Anyone in D.C. who wasn’t watching the NCAA championship game last night packed into the sold-out 9:30 Club to witness post-punk dream team Wild Flag continue its spring U.S. tour. Although Carrie Brownstein threatened (or tempted, depending on your point of view) to project the game on a screen and play a “Jock Jams live soundtrack,” the band rocked a solid mix of new songs and crowd favorites.

D.C.-lifer and Helium alum Mary Timony played her hometown venue with her trio of bandmates. Brownstein, of Sleater-Kinney and newfound Portlandia fame, returned to the club for the first time since March’s polarizing live tour of her IFC show. Sleater-Kinney’s drummer Janet Weiss and Rebecca Cole, of The Minders completed the group, which has played together in various combinations since the 90s.

The set started with the cultish invitation of “Electric Band.” However, this energy wasn’t consistent throughout the show. Sparks weren’t actually flying and the crowd wasn’t boisterously cheering until the Jefferson-Airplane-esque “Glass Tambourine.” A sparse but effectively kinetic light show highlighted the song’s jam interlude, which featured Timony playing her guitar over her head while doing yogic stretches and kneeling in front of orange amps as Brownstein jumped in the air across the stage.

The band played also played a few new songs that mixed punk influences with vintage girl-group harmonies in the same vein as their current recorded oeuvre. A ballad that featured Brownstein snarling “I’m in love with the whole world, but you” will inspire breakups just to better relish this bitter song.

A two-song encore ended with a cover of Fugazi’s “Margin Walker.” The enthusiastically dancing audience contradicted Brownstein’s assertion that only five people in the audience would recognize the punk throwback. The singer herself became more animated than at any other point in the show, despite having the flu, because Fugazi “would have played even on their deathbeds.”