ratatat at house of blues

synth/guitar duo ratatat played house of blues downtown last night, whipping the packed club into a frenzy on tracks from their new cd, lp3, and earlier favorites. supported by a tour bass player, keyboardist evan mast rocked his huge afro about as he played (whoops, make that producer/keyboardist evan mast on bass, with tour support from "martin" on keyboard - thanks, commenter) and was matched by guitarist mike stroud, who frequently arched his back completely parallel to the floor as he squealed away. playing over a backing track, it was sometimes difficult to tell how much of that guitar was pre-recorded and how much was live



performing against a video backdrop featuring repetitive, distorted features from various media (see crappy iphone pic above), the high-energy show lasted about an hour and was highlighted by absolutely scorching versions of "mirando", "lex", and "falcon jab", finally closing their encore with a pounding rendition of "seventeen years" as much of the crowd jumped and thrashed about. interestingly, mellower fare such as "lapland" from the classics cd came off as much heavier live, but the energy in the room ebbed during quieter songs such as "shiller" from lp3. still, you have to hand it to the big (white) crowd for being so enthused about a band that doesn't even have vocals. check out the crazy video for "ratatat" below, which was also projected on the screen.