Tuesday December 17, 2008, Brooklyn Masonic Temple: Walkmen and The Dodos

And it's another pictureless review. Pictures should be back in time for my review of the Akron/Family New Years Eve Spectacular. So for this one, you'll have to find pictures somewhere else.

First, the venue: The show was held at The Brooklyn Masonic Temple which seems like somewhat of an unlikely place for a show. Once inside, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch. Sure, it's not a regular concert venue, but it looks like it's used as a community/recreation center, so concerts for the Brooklyn hipster community make sense. It's also conveniently located 4 blocks from my apartment. Unfortunately, this didn't mean that I was home shortly after the concert was over. I made the mistake of checking my coat, and despite leaving during the last song to beat the crowds, I was stuck in line for nearly an hour waiting for my coat. So that sucked.

I also missed the first song of The Dodos' set because it took longer than expected to check my coat. Point is, don't check your coat there. But at least I only missed one song of The Dodos set, and I was lucky that it wasn't one of my favorites ("Red and Purple"). The Dodos put on a strong high energy show. The band is a three piece of guitar/vocals, drums/vocals and added percussion/viberaphone (I think). So just by virtue of their interesting instrumentation, The Dodos have an interesting sound.

I already reviewed their album earlier this week, and while I liked it, I wasn't able to form a very strong opinion of it. Fortunately, I had no such difficulty with their live show. Despite being seated, the lead singer/guitar player plays with a lot of energy, and the emphasis on percussion gives the songs lots of kick. His guitar playing is strong enough that it doesn't need accompaniment by another guitar to fill in the empty spaces. There were a couple of non-album songs that were good but didn't live up to the strongest moments on the album. But then again, this was the first time I heard these songs, so it's hard to judge. The set was just about perfect for me. Other than "Paint the Rust", they played all of my favorite songs on the album, and they closed with the track I was most dying to hear ("The Season"). So that was a lot of fun. Approximate set list that is probably about 70% wrong:

Red and Purple
Eyelids
Fools
Joe's Waltz
Unknown song
Unknown song
Jodi
The Season

And up next were The Walkmen. After seeing them last February, I'd pretty much given up on seeing these guys live. I skipped a series of shows they had earlier in the fall, and I probably would have skipped last night's show if not for The Dodos. The Walkmen do not play $20 worth of music live. For a band with 4 albums of original material, there is no reason for them to play just 15 songs. But that's about all you get from these guys. I could maybe understand/excuse if the songs were longer or more exhausting to perform, but for the most part, the band looks pretty relaxed on stage. Which would be fine IF THEY PLAYED LONGER. When I first saw them, I thought they put on an intense show. Those days seem to be over.

I don't really know what else to say. Song by song, they do fine, but I don't really get why they play live. They don't seem to enjoy it that much. I was especially disappointed last night that they left off two easy croud pleasers ("Little House of Savages" and "Thinking of a Dream I Had"), and I generally try not to let my enjoyment of a show be determined by the band's set list. Because, what would you rather hear? Your favorite songs performed poorly as a chore or songs that the band can get truly fired up playing? Some of my favorite shows of all time have even been dominated by songs I'd never heard before. But with The Walkmen, I can't find anything about their shows to make them more than the sum of the songs they play. So on a night like last night when they don't play my favorites, I go home feeling cheated.


Songs they played mostly not in order:

Donde esta la Playa
In the New Year
Louisiana
Red Moon
Four Provinces
New Country
All Hands on the Cook
On the Water
The Rat
They're Winning
Seven Years of Holidays
Red Moon
Canadian Girl
Long Time Ahead of Us
White Christmas
Another One Goes By