Wednesday night, I went for the first time to a space called Warehouse Next Door near the DC Convention center to see a current favorite band of mine, Beirut.
There has been a lot of blogging buzz with them, and when I got to the club at 7:30, an hour before the show was supposed to open, there was already a line.
The show ended not even letting in until 9:30 - 2 hours! By that time, the line was around the block. I got into the small space which had a capacity for only 140, and there had to have been twice that number waiting inside.
First up was Curtains, a band featuring Chris Cohen formerly of Deerhoof. They had a fun psychedelic sound that reminded me some of the Red Krayola with Art & Language. Not as Communist or as wacked out though.
The second act was Get Him Eat Him from Providence, RI - they were a high energy band with a dork indie rock sound. They were really fun. I swear the bassist looked 12 years old.
Beirut was amazing live. Lead singer Zach Condon sounds a lot like Rufus Wainwright- a high tenor- beautiful. The backing band was filled with energy when they played with him - they included an accordion, several horns and reeds, a violin, a cello, organ, drums, and several ukeleles. The whole group were really tight, and they even played a few new songs during the set which had most music from their debut record Gulag Orkester. 
The encore consisted of two gypsy tunes. The crowd got totally into the show. It was worth the painful wait outside to see them.
3 comments:
Looks great. Too bad we missed it.
just out of curiousity, have you heard/seen devotchka? i'm constantly amazed by the fickle indie hype machine and how a band like beiruit can have a 2 hr line while devotchka plays at the state theatre in suburbia without much hub-bub
i have heard devotchka- i actually found out about them when i lived on the west coast- they're from colorado i think. i like their stuff, but have never seen them live.
i knew about this beirut show in june, and i was not too surprised by the turnout considering all the hype they've received. devotchka probably needs to move to brooklyn to enter the cool-sphere or something.
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