So I might as well start paying rent to the Mercury Lounge, I spend more time there than I do at home. We rushed over to the show from skeeball, but ended up getting caught up in some park hijinks, which caused us to miss the White Rabbits set. Sort of a bummer.
We got settled in to the back room just as the Born Ruffians finished setting up. This is the band that I was really interested to see. Hurray for Toronto. I actually went there about six years ago to check out the scene, and lately it seems, I was six years too early.
The Ruffians have a sound I like. Although the guitars are pretty straightforward and distortion-free, I still dig it. At one point they had two bass guitars going on stage which was good. There were lots of yelps, a few hand-claps, and some tambourine – so if you’re into all that fun stuff, you’ll like them. Interesting vocals and a really great energy too. There was lots of inter-band communication which for some reason always makes me happy to see. I’d say that they took the blue ribbon in terms of performance.
Peter Bjorn and John were interesting. For a pop outfit they can rock a little. “Young Folks” was obviously, predictably, and unmistakably the high point of the evening. You could practically smell the anticipation beforehand. When they rolled out the bongos the crowd went crazy. Which actually converted directly into madness given we were at Mercury. The band could have played a smooth jazz version of the song while throwing heavy rocks into crowd and I bet it would have garnered the same reaction. Oh hype, how do you do it?
So the band itself is like folksy sort of and I swear I heard some surf stuff in there. Other than “Young Folks” we heard a song about Paris and one about a Coffin, both of which were pleasant to hear. It should be interesting to see where all this hype will land these guys. Having New York City sweat your debut this hard is a tough check to cut.
Other than all that – the photographers were super pushy, the crowd was spouting tons of anti-Brooklyn sentiment, and Rachel and Zach watched Drew Barrymore make out with some dude for the whole show. Typical Monday night in the Big Apple.
