BrightestYoungThings: Live DC: The Antlers @ DC9

all words: Wlada Kolosowa
all (stunning) photos: Mark Silva

The Antlers' keyboardist Darby Cicci was wearing socks on the stage and that’s probably what describes the show best: Music that took your shoes off. The trio’s sound made you want to be on a train ride, headphones in your ear, staring out of the window and hoping never to arrive. Or curl up in an armchair and purr. But then, when you least expect it, the lullabies grew big, and heart-wrenching and took the audience by surprise. In a most sweet and dreamy voice, front man Peter Silberman was singing about death, guilt, loss and the helplessness of being forced to watch a beloved one dying.

I haven’t heard music that emotionally charged in a while.

I haven’t been prepared for that at all. “Oh, well,” I was thinking before the concert. “Another skinny The-band with designer strubbles and a home address in -surprise, surprise - Brooklyn.” Can it get more predictable? But show turned out to be the most intimate concert you can imagine. Darby, Peter and Michael (on the drums) got everyone dazed, playing their instruments at times violently and in the next moment in a way which can best be described as “stroking”. A simple, but immense sound.

“We don’t want to tell people what to feel,” said the drummer Michael Learner after the concert. “We just want them to be satisfied.” And this goal was one hundred percent achieved. I have seldom seen people leave so silently after a concert.

The pre-acts did a good emotional warm up too: Shapiro (hairy, look-alike guitarists, a drum, a piano and an insane voice) and Holly Miranda (still traveling with her Mom, but amazing vocals and a megaphone) caused the hair on your arms to stand up and the nipples stiffen. After that, everyone was prepared for deep feelings. “We 've been definitely pulling the emotional string,” Michael said. “Our songs are not piercing. We want a BIG sound.” And the show proved he is right: Sometimes quiet is the better loud.