The Rapture at Webster Hall

"Get yourself together...
Get yourself together....
Shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake shake!"

The strong and excellent Brett joined me last Monday night at Webster Hall to shake it at LEAST 17 times at The Rapture, one of those great bands who really capture the party feel of their discs live—and if fact, can play with the crowd and kick it even higher. I hadn't been to this venue in years and years—maybe not even since it was The Ritz, back in the 1980s—and had forgotten how intimate a setting it can be. Not as cozy as the Bowery Ballroom, which happens to be where I saw another great Rature show a couple years ago, but even standing at the back of the crowd Brett and I felt like we right in it. The sound was pretty sharp (though they could have turned the vocals up a bit), the mixed hipster/frat boy/smart girl crowd jumping, the bass thumping in our chests, and the band played pretty much everything I could have asked for, including Sister Saviour, Killing, House of Jealous Lovers, Out of the Races and Onto the Track, Get Myself Into It, I Need Your Love, The Coming of Spring, and my favorite from the new CD, Whoo! Alright Yeah...Uh Huh, which pokes fun at too-cool posers and ends with the fabulous line: "I used to think life was a bitter pill but it's a grand old tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmme!!"

The Rapture have not given up their dance/rock sound, nor their sense of fun. Definitely a band worth checking out whenever they decide to play next.