Beirut and Deerhoof at McCarren Park Pool Party

Sunday, August 13, 2006 -- Holy cow! Williamsburg, Brooklyn is the hippest place around. The place where vintage clothing is more expensive than new fashions, but you're ridiculed for spending too much on your 21st Century trappings; where shirts are always at least one size too small and the guys just cannot bring the hotness if they're not wearing their sister's Levi's. Williamsburg prides itself on its characters, but everyone is just a little too timid to stray, so the culture has become largely homogenized. It's the place where asking for McCarren Park Pool's location is met with harsh reactions from the too-hip-for-hipsters crowd who wouldn't think of attending the Beirut/Deerhoof show or the hip-enough-for-hipsters crowd who can't believe you don't know where the day's big concert is.

So what could you expect from this show at Williamsburg's resurrected pool spot? A great time? Well, yes, of course; where else would I be going with this?

Okay, so there were the Williamsburg regulars. During Beirut's set, I stood above two girls sitting Indian-style reading books, completely detached from their surroundings, and oh yeah(!), from the band performing on stage. Would this be a more common occurrence if shows were as well lit as this one? The sun certainly brings out a different concertgoer in some of us. When it's just hot enough to remind us that it's summer, and bringing a crowd-bouncing beachball sounds like a good idea. It became irresistably cute rather than irresponsible to bring your toddler along to see a band like Deerhoof. And Brooklyn Lager never tasted so good even after having to wait on three different lines to get it.

I don't necessarily think of Beirut and Deerhoof when I think outdoor concert. They do well in the intimate rock club with heady lighting and the veil of dark mystery, but their sounds translate surprisingly well. The strains of tender merriment were able to reach the surface.

Beirut utters a brilliant sound with Balkan and Gypsy traditions filtered through a pop rock netting of maritime folkiness. Zach Condon's vocals are of a more whimsical, subdued Scott Walker, and highlight the buoyant music behind him. The multi-instrumentalist is hailed as a musical prodigy, and his band gets about as much online-hype as Lily Allen. Sure, Beirut is precocious, but it's just that. Their approach is fresh and inventive, but their execution is slightly underdeveloped. Their live performance at McCarren Park pool was a clear representation of what I mean. Songs bled together with very few memorable and deviating melodies. Brass colors vanished in the air due to flimsy arrangements without much sense of dynamics and changes. They were tight, but the songs are more an indication of the songwriting caliber to come. Even Postcards from Italy, the fan-favorite, wasn't as affecting as a favorite should be. Surely it has a lot to do with the composition, but maybe it had even more to do with their unrefined, more clever than thou, yet kinda half-baked comments in between songs. The energy lost a good deal of its propellant when Beirut's obnoxious tambourine player felt the need to constantly insert his inane observations. Keep it to yourself, bud.
It's all good, though. Beirut was a nice precursor to what I know I came for.

Deerhoof hit the stage during DJ ?uestlove's set. Lead singer, Satomi Matsuzaki, sang in repeat, "Bunny," over the DJ's booming hip-hopness. Then the band began their short, but adrenalized set, with a whole bunch of Runner's Four material. By the way, Matsuzaki is the hottest thing since Japanese school girls started wearing those damn skirts. Sure, she's got the cute asian thing goin' on, but most of it has to do with her approach to music. Her on-stage dance-antics, her simple and crude tackling of Paul McCartney's Hofner bass sound, and the paradox of her vocals--the child-like timbre and melodies, and the mature complexity and intrigue of these same melodies-- both broadcast twitches through my insides. Deerhoof, among others, of course, demonstrate that you don't have to be a jam band to make each show new and exciting. You attach yourself to each song's familiaralities, but they're so reshaped that you feel virgin to the performances. They capture the live undertaking of rock music's past. The albums are refined to an extent, but the explosion of clarified rawness and spontaneity comes shattering forth during the concerts. Wrong Time Capsule's riff-heavy freak-out probably received the most exciting live-treatment. I nearly shat and splooged. My only complaint of the Pool Party show was, of course, its length, but I guess that keeps the drool flowing bulbous and without end.

Some videos with less than stellar sound, but swell, nonetheless:

Deerhoof - Bunny Beginnings

More Deerhoof


Beirut - Their last song with introduction from tambourine-shmuck