LIVE: Passion Pit, Hockey, Whelan's, March 1st

This one had all the characteristics to be the "I was there when they played at Whelan's" gig for 2009, following on from annyoing comments from hipsters who attended Fleet Foxes and The National inter alia at the hallowed venue in previous years. While this gig may not quite have lived up to that kind of billing, there was definitely a sense that we were witnessing something big in the making last Sunday night. Hockey opened the bill, bringing their own unique style, which might be described as "we look like Foals, but we're far happier, less indulgent, funkier, and our lead singer is a much friendlier guy". With these characteristics comes a lack of edge which will most likely make them less serious contenders than the Oxford crew. Lead vocal was scarily strong, at times leading one to wonder if it was indeed a CD playing. Belters such as Too Fake and Song Away had the room well and truly bouncing, although it must be admitted that among their extensive repertoire of, em, 6 songs, there are a feww fillers.

Very very strong support was then followed by a sublime show from Passion Pit, arguably this year's most touted group in the "blogosphere". A phenomenally idiosyncraticly high-pitched vocal from Michael Angelakos does tempt one to think they are a bit of a fad, but the lack of headbands and neon helped assuage our fears, as PP launched into their own brand of electro-nerdy-funk from the Chunk of Change EP. In all honesty Angelakos actually faltered at times as he seemed to struggle to continually keep at such a high pitch. Their synth man was the real hero for me, brimming with so much enthusiasm that at times it seemed his head would fall off from his bopping. Highlight of the night was the riveting rendition of Sleepyhead nearly took the roof off Whelan's to finish the main set. This was bizarrely followed by a fairly lame lead-vocal-does-solo-track-on-his-own to finish up. Robin Pecknold can sleep easily on that account.

Both these bands will definitely fly high this year and I have no doubt we will all be dancing our asses off all summer to tracks from both. As for it being the "I was there when they played Whelan's" gig, em, maybe. I was there though.
Here is Sleepyhead from Sunday night