BrightestYoungThings: LiveDC: Herman Dune @ DC9

All beautiful photos by James Malone
All sappy words by Cale

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I get tons of CD’s in the mail from labels and PR firms and what not. I mp3 all of them and stick them on the iPod. Then I eventually hear them when they come up on shuffle. 50% of the time they suck. 25% of the time they’re mediocre. 20% of the time they’re good. 5% of the time they’re amazing. Herman Dune was in that 5%. It was this folky goofy catchy Jens Lekman sort of stuff. Instantly loveable.

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They’ve been around for a while in some form or another and have a handful of albums and EP’s. Many of them with pictures of Chewbacca on the front. David-Ivar Herman Düne is from Paris and Néman Herman Düne is from Switzerland. Maybe. Is it a Ween/Ramones thing or are they related? Not sure. Nobody seems to fact check when writing about them so I won’t either.

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Last time they were in town I missed it due to a big BYT event or something so I was pretty determined to see them at DC9 on Tues. We had a BYT dinner meeting beforehand where I tried to convince Svet, Libby, Jason, and our designer Erik (wearing an adorable hat) to come with. Svet and Libby were set on Girls at the Cat and Erik succumbed to peer pressure. Jason was tired and went home. While I like the Girls album I had a feeling DC9 was the place to be. I didn’t push it though cause I hadn’t ever seen these guys live nor heard all their material. I met up with my girlfriend Amy who is also a fan and we arrived mid way through the opener Julie Doiron’s set. It wasn’t bad but also wasn’t particularly interesting and her self deprecating stage banter started to grate on me a bit, but the small crowd of about 25 seemed to be there to see her, so what do I know.

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For the last couple songs she brought the Dunes on stage as the backing band, apparently they made an album together, and things kicked up a notch.

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After a short set break David came back to a slightly dwindling crowd. His thick accent and awkward mannerisms had me going gay for him before he even started playing. He did a couple solo tunes which were beautiful. And funny. His lyrics are effortlessly quirky and hilarious, I don’t think it’s an act, he’s like genuinely out of a Wes Anderson movie.

Neman the drummer joined him on stage and I was overwhelmed with joy. The live renditions of songs I knew and loved sparkled with a new intensity and the songs I wasn’t familiar with quickly became my new favs. I sent out a text to Libby:

God damn that Girls show better be good cause these guys are fucking perfection

Her reply: It’s boring you win

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I recently read this essay about a scientific study done on monkeys. They were doing brain scans and when a monkey picked up a peanut a certain area would fire off. Please excuse my lack of proper terminology, but you get the idea. They then noticed something peculiar; the same exact area of the brain would be engaged when the monkey simply observed the scientist picking up the peanut. Further study revealed that humans demonstrate the same phenomenon, and not just for picking up peanuts, but for everything. Seeing someone in pain actually caused the brain to react as if the persons own body was in pain, etc. Basically they had discovered the biological origin of empathy, something that had eluded evolutionary psychologists for decades. This explained a lot to me about why I feel such a strong need to share experiences with others. I was happy watching this wonderful show, and seeing my girlfriend happy gave it another boost. It’s addicting. I wanted everyone to be there in some syrupy hippie love fest. So no Libby, I didn’t really win, we all lost.

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Anyway, the show carried on, every song was catchy and wonderful, the band was razor sharp tight even though Neman looked like he was half asleep and/or high. At one point David ran to the amp, cranked up the distortion, and rocked everyones balls off while he did this faggoty twinkle toe dance. Many in the audience danced along with him, and at one point I looked around and every single person was grinning. It was like Christmas in heaven. I felt bad getting in for free so I went and bought some merch I didn’t even want just to support these guys.

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David joked that every time he is booked to play DC it actually ends up being Silver Spring or Arlington, and that he was genuinely excited to be here and couldn’t wait to see the statue of Lincoln tomorrow.

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