Live DC: Yeasayer / PonyTail @ The Cat

April 14, 2008 by Aaron  Send to a Friend

all photos: Dakota Fine

Suspect. That’s all I can say. I’m suspicious. But maybe suspicious is too strong of a word. Suspicious implies that I imagine someone to be up to no good, or not worthy of my trust. And maybe they’re not as polite or kind as Ponytail, who would apparently “make Barack Obama or Mother Theresa look like assholes.” But Yeasayer certainly appeared to be upstanding young men, at least from my vantage point in the crowd.
Rewind the track for a sec.

It’s Thursday. I’m pumped. Thursday’s are it. It. The night when you know that going out means a bit of reprieve as you can totally autopilot it through Friday. Maybe sleep in a bit. Take an extended lunch. You know the deal.
So I was ready. Yeasayer. Ponytail. Black Cat. Descend into the belly of Metro and the next train’s coming in 1 minute. Yes! Get to the Cat. I’m on the list. Things couldn’t be better.
Meet and greet. Some of the usuals. Some new faces. Some really great Yeasayer t-shirts for sale.
People emerge onstage. They look young and excited. Must be Ponytail. I imagined them looking young and exciting. So far so good. Also, the young female singer has a Spanish-mullet-like hair styling. It’s not a ponytail, and any joke I was about to make about that would be seriously lame. Thank God I didn’t.
The drummer looks like Art Garfunkel. And that’s okay because he’s playing his heart out. As are the rest of the band. Incorporating two guitars, drums, and a siren beckoned from some Illiad-esque land, Ponytail keeps it simple. This is surf-rock on speed. Catchy, repetitive, trebly guitar lines laid over super high energy tom-heavy drum grooves culminate in a celebration of what it must feel like to be as young as these kids look. Saying that makes me old, but listening to Ponytail makes me feel like I’m 14 again and playing football in the street at dusk.

Molly Sigel. She gets it. In the way that Brian Wilson got it. Sometimes it’s less about what’s said then what the music says for you. Her shrieks, exclamations and shrill cries channel the inescapable attitude of the perceptible acoustics. Intrinsically joyous, they make you want to go into spasms along with her. Some might compare it to Deerhoof, but that seems more like an equation of two women’s vocal ranges. This is not the type of cerebral mathematic exercise Deerhoof often feels like. This is feel-good pop music at breakneck speeds. In conclusion (and the title of their closer): Celebrate the Body Electric.

But maybe it was just me.
Yeasayer. They’re here. This is a full house. Packed. I’ve heard the stories about the Backstage and how these non-nay-sayers were petitioned back into town. People certainly lived up to their word. Because they all seem to be here.
“These guys are rad.” – Aaron Baird, aka me. Said sometime around the third song to Brian Weitz aka Geologist from Animal Collective. Being the super-nerd fan I am, I spotted Brian at the bar and introduced myself. My whisky intake alleviated any self-aware jaded ‘tude I might have had, and I probably embarrassed myself. But he’s a dude and put up with me. He also mentioned he went to high school with one/some of the guys in the band. As any other “grass is greener” DC dweller might have said, I told him B-more was dope. He agreed.

But back to the matter at hand. Yeasayer is a seriously good band. One of those ethereal musical groups that make you acutely aware of your physical and spiritual state. I kind of hate when people say this, but they make me see colors in their music. Earth-tones, burnt oranges, and deep reds. They’re music is almost anachronistic with its penchant for upper-register choral chants and drone-like layered guitar-work. Polyrhythmic aptitude is a must in this contemporary indie-stry and Yeasayer’s drummer worked the crowed into a communal cathartic meditative state. I was feeling good. Which is why when I caught a glance of the setlist and noticed only 9 songs on the list I was curious. Did this include the encore? Is this it?

Shortly afterward I found that this was, in fact, it. No encore. Maybe 45 minutes in total. It was 11:15. My buzz was on life-support.

Yeasayer. Suspect.

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