Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Chicago, IL

By: Billy Kenefick

Monday October 16, 2006

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was conceived in the belly of the Great Whale. They bring this larger than life energy to Chicago's Vic Theater.
Every now and then I go to a show without hearing anything from the bands I'm going to see. Because I don't want viruses associated with downloading music, I often preview the bands in a few muddled 30 second clips from Amazon.com on an out-dated Windows Media Player. Such was the case when I headed out to see Architecture in Helsinki and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Vic in early October. In fact, all I knew is that by the looks of the and-names on paper, I was about to see some hipster music. Would there be dancing, or head nodding? Track jackets? Miller High Life? It's not fair to pull a Stephen Colbert (who always judges books by their covers) and judge a show by the ticket, is it?

Oh, and was I ever surprised. As it turned out, the Australian instant-party known as Architecture in Helsinki was one of the most fun bands that I've seen in a long time - and boy, were there a lot of them up there! I guess the newest thing in rock is to keep switching instruments like musical chairs because the band tossed instruments around like it was going out of style.

Their set started with a loud Boom...Boom...Boom...Boom, followed by a punchy bassline, scraggy acoustic strumming and high-pitched, nearly indecipherable singing from Cameron and his mates. Throughout the set, if he wasn't strumming his acoustic guitar as fast as possible, Cameron picked up spare drum sticks and hit a sample pad like a Viking on his way to conquer Iceland.

The 30 second clips from work did not do this band justice live, because they ROCKED live. Architecture in Helsinki gets an B+.

On to the big boys, the hand-clapping instigators, 4/5 of which are from the home of Saturday Night Fever (singer Alec Ounsworth hails from Philly). Impervious to the wicked thunderstorm outside, this quintet hit the stage and immediately launched into their up-tempo, slightly upbeat guitar rock with a side of heavy flange. I recognized one of their songs, "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth," which definitely stuck in my head from the Windows Media Player jam session from earlier in the afternoon (thanks to their Myspace page I could listen to more than 30 seconds of it at work the next day). The band continued on to play their entire debut album and they even tried out a few new songs which may appear on their new record, the dreaded follow-up.

Why would the second album be dreaded? Because a band with this good of a debut record, such an interesting story and famous high profile fans such as David Bowie, David Byrne and myself may or may not have a lot to live up to. Oh yeah, not to mention the malleable judgment of a scenester fanbase, some of whom have built-in phobias of liking popular things. I personally give them a lot of credit. First, for performing a really fun show and putting together a great bill. Second, for doing what everybody with a band wants to do - record and release your own album, and then tour the world on your efforts.

Hmm...come to think of it, I propose that the so-called backlash is simply a few critics' self-disappointment manifested. In other words, maybe these fans that all of a sudden became "critical" of CYHSY's success (signing to Wichita Recordings in the UK) are simply bummed that their band is still in that one dude's basement. There sure wasn't any backlash or ill-will at the concert, however, only good vibes and good music. Their show was great and I'm looking forward to their next one, or at least some new 30 second increments on Windows Media Player.