I bought Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Some Loud Thunder the day it was available in stores, and I was fairly disappointed at first. It didn’t have the same ooomph that their debut album had, although I couldn’t complain in the wailing department, because oh man can the singer wail!
I arrived at La Cigale last Monday, bought a beer and squeezed my way to the front of the stage. You see, the sad part about watching a concert alone is that there is no one to lift you up when you can’t see the stage. I am doomed to forever be standing behind an unusually tall person with dreadlocks during concerts. Or a big, burly guy with shoulders as wide as a football field. You get the point.
Elvis Perkins in Dearland was the first band who opened for CYHSY – I’d never heard of them before that night, and they were amazing to see live; they had this huge, full sound (thanks to the double bass). They have some songs up on their website if you want to have a listen; you can check their MySpace as well.
Cold War Kids played next; quite good too, amazing sound, except that… I was a bit disturbed and irritated by the bassist, whose stage presence was so rockstar. He kept bumping heads with the guitarist and kept on jerking his hand like a fool. God, I hated him. But they played this amazing number with horns and keyboards, and even had this angry-looking man tapping on a wine bottle with a drumstick.
Then Clap Your Hands Say Yeah got onstage, finally (after making us wait for about 30 minutes). They played some of their new stuff, including Satan Said Dance (which you can hear on their myspace – it’s my robot’s favourite song, too!), and In This Home on Ice, a song that I really really love. People started to slam into each other when they played Is This Love.
The madness of the moshpit hit the ceiling when they played the first strains of The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth. I got pushed out of my place, so I tried to move towards the Bobbers and Jumpers (people who bob their heads up and down along to the music while jumping – a very peaceful lot), but not before helping those people who were being carried by the crowd (at one point a guy was being carried upside down, his feet sticking up in the air, it was hilarious and he looked utterly stupid). Anyway, at this point someone or something hit the back of my head (the crowd had obviously gotten bored and dropped the guy they were carrying) and so I chose Life and made my way up to the balconies and watched the rest of the concert from there.
The balcony had an excellent view but the problem was that the huge spotlight was pointing at us and we all had to shade our eyes if we still wanted to see after the concert.
Normally, if I was with Jul or with some friends, we would have gone for a drink afterwards, but it was late and raining and I wanted to catch the last tram, so I made my way back home, still buzzing from the concert and wanting so much to sing out loud in the metro. Back home, I made some soup while rubbing the back of my head which was still sore, and after listening to the new album again I fell into a deep, rock-n-roll-filled sleep.
PS. My friend Kat (of Plastiq Passion) was able to see their concert from backstage, that lucky girl. I definitely have to watch a Plastiq Passion concert one of these days, and I’m going to demand a backstage pass. Kat, we have to watch a concert together one day! Hopefully Interpol, so we can drool over Paul Banks. 
Currently listening to:
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Some Loud Thunder
