Klaxons @ Bowery Ballroom, 4/10/07

I'm not sure what it says about a band when the lead singer, Jamie Reynolds, is wearing a Burberry coat on stage. No matter how much he was sweating, you can bet that jacket wasn't coming off. I found him to be the most entertaining. He had more of a rough-around-the-edges appeal that I'm not used to seeing from the other UK upstart bands; it's that glazed look of borderline insanity that I like to see out of a band leader. Really, I could have done without seeing the rest of the fools up on stage. The keyboard player looks like he's four. The guitar player was so bombed, he should have been on stage with Trail of Dead. He was a complete waste of space. The drummer was a late addition to the band and I thought he actually performed quite well although his look was straight out of a terrible '80's video. As for the songs, it was a bit of a mixed bag. They started exceptionally strong with "The Bouncer" and "Atlantis to Interzone" then dipped through the middle of set until, what was the higlight for me, the three song stretch of "Magick," "Gravity's Rainbow," and "It's Not Over Yet." They then finished up with two more songs and after 45 minutes, they left the stage without an encore. Some may be annoyed by this. I'm not. With one album there's no need to prolong the show, especially when you've played everything that the crowd needs/wanted to hear. Come in, bring your best effort, and leave. I'm not sure we saw the best of them but I left with the feeling that I saw a good performance of songs from what I still believe to be one of the more enjoyable albums I've heard this year.

Setlist:
"The Bouncer"
"Atlantis to Interzone"
"Hall of Records"
"Totem on the Timeline"
"Golden Stans"
"As Above, So Below"
"Two Receivers"
"Magick"
"Gravity's Rainbow"
"It's Not Over Yet"
"Isle of Her"
"Four Horsemen of 2012"