Ratatat with 120 Days
This night of arrogance began with 120 Days. Although I really like other of their fellow Norwegians-musicians like Saint Thomas and bands like Serena Maneesh, seeing 120 days was quite a disappointment. The music itself was actually alright-nice full sound and catchy with the four of the incredibly tall male musicians playing drums, keyboards, guitar and synthesizer to create music as danceable and fun as a Norwegian Maximo Park only with a little bit more prog in the mix.
But what turned me off more than anything was the lead singer’s attitude. In some ways, he had a really fantastic stage presence-jumping into the audience, crowd surfing, and actually at one point climbing from the banister of Emo’s. However, he seemed insecurely obsessed with needing lavish applause and attention to a nauseating extent. It became incessant and distracting. I mean…I more than willingly clap when a band impresses me but this was over the top Bono-esque attitude that completely turned me off of the music. I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be the guy’s girlfriend. Would he stop passionate embraces every two or three minutes to have applause reassuring him? Totally incapable of letting the music ebb and flow in the way that it should.
It’s not that I am not a fan of guitar based instrumentals-I mean I love bands like Caribou (formerly Manitoba) for example (though they do use some vocals on certain songs). It’s just that there are some bands that can deliver the goods both on album and live and others can’t. Similar to Caribou. Ratatat used visuals behind them when they played. However, the visuals weren’t nearly as creative and merely filled space. What took place musically was really in essence a boring jam band who had arrogantly made the cramped sold out crowd wait an astounding hour while they did heaven knows what (my guess is listen to Daft Punk). The audience was so angered they actually started throwing beer bottles at the stage. Still, when Ratatat finally did emerge after ignoring several chants of their band name to encourage them to come out, they offered no apology or excuse as if to say “We’re good enough to wait for.†I’ve got news for Ratatat: You’re not. Your Hummer driven commercial songs are full of waste for me now. This was one of the only shows in my lifetime I left early. Good riddance!