So we played our first show in quite some time last night at Union Pool under the name of the mighty Electric Mayhem Band. It was a blast! Here’s a write up from the NY Press about the show:
A secret show of sorts at Union Pool last night saw TV Baby and The Rapture rip through two short but killer sets.
Openers TV Baby (said to me more like TV, Baby, with a swagger-packed paused) tore up songs of jagged guitar riffs, howling vocals and fast synth beats. It was kinda like giving Little Richard a guitar he wasn’t sure how to play and making him front New Order while everybody was on amphetamines—a rock ‘n’ roll dance flashbang. TV Baby is Brain McPeck and Matt McAuley from A.R.E. Weapons, a band that has purportedly been friends with The Rapture’s keyboardist/saxophonist/aux percussionist Luke Jenner for years, hence the billing.
As a friend reminded me before the main draw took the stage, we heard last from The Rapture on the 2006 album Pieces of the People We Love— that is, beyond the plethora of TV, movie and video game appearances keeping the band in the black as it records a new album in Paris. Singer and guitarist Gabriel Andruzzi told me the show had a last-minute announcement via the band’s Facebook page around 3 p.m. because the post-punk dance trio just wanted friends there. Well, if that’s the case, they sure have a lot of pals—the place was packed to the gills.
With LCD Soundsystem selling out Terminal 5 for three nights in a row, it would have been a shame if these dance-centered DFA veterans couldn’t have filled the much, much smaller Union Pool, even on such short notice. But The Rapture certainly did, drawing in as many mouthy, excited fans from the garden as from its clandestine web announcement. Drummer Vito Roccoforte told me it was a warm-up show (they have two, more-publicized shows this week). But they seemed totally on point, joined on bass by Harris Klahr, late of the excellent Q And Not U, and playing a shitload of crowd favorites and only one new track, “Sail Away,” a down-tempo joint that still managed to break into the band’s signature 2–4 dance vibe. It appears the band is winding up to make some moves this year—is that an album release we smell on the horizon?
Besides someone in the audience with an airhorn, who was remarkably on rhythm, the set went down like a dance pill, and The Rapture had the crowd eating out of its volatile hands. So much so Andruzzi led the crowd in a collective, post-set Telemundo howl of “GOOOAL” in celebration of Landon Donovan’s World Cup stunner.
