Buzz has been building up considerably for Brooklyn’s Parquet Courts over the last little while. It was due to this buzz that they were on my list of bands to see this past March at SXSW (where some of said buzz was built up) yet I never got around to seeing them then. And so, despite the fact that their debut album, Light Up Gold, was released nearly a year ago, I was glad to see the band was still on the road for a tour which took them to the Horseshoe Tavern this past Wednesday night. From the looks of the sizeable crowd in attendance, I wasn’t the only one.
Parquet Courts’ live sound can alternate between slacker psychedelia and old school hardcore punk fury which makes for an oddly paced set at times. The band acknowledged this after playing a lengthy number when bassist Sean Yeaton noted that the crowd kind of seemed in a daze. They course corrected by the next tune, but still, it made for a slightly uneven experience. Also uneven, but also amusing, was the band’s stage banter between songs, which was almost non-banter. At one point, guitarist Austin Brown began telling the crowd that he had a roommate from Toronto once. “He was a really cool guy,” he added. “How cool was he?” asked Yeaton before Andrew Savage cut in with “Can we just start the damn song?”
Despite any issues I may have had with the pacing of their set, the Parquet Courts faithful were eating it up. Several in attendance began crowd surfing. I’m pretty sure one guy crowdsurfed at least three times. That seems a bit like pushing your luck. Just do it once and then move on.
By the time Woods came onstage, the crowd had thinned out a bit, but those still in attendance were treated to a set full of sweet, psychedelic folk rock jams. These guys are an impressive force to behold, with their live set augmented by not only a second drummer (which added a fair bit of heft to the proceedings) but by the projections of lightsweetcrude, whose impressive work added greatly to the psychedelic vibe. Working in real time with an overhead projector, an array of paints, water, some plates, and whatever else was at hand, he was often just as interesting to watch as the band. It was the perfect melding of sound and visuals.