Ratatat Might Have Wanted to Play Last Night

Let’s get one thing straight—I like [Ratatat].  Their ’80s-style disco-electronic music that loops like some sort of endless head nodding, arm-in-the-air-bouncing trance, really moves me.  Seeing them live at the Music Hall of Williamsburg last night did not.  I knew the band was popular in the hipster music scene, I knew the show was sold out in the hipster capital of the world, but I didn’t know that Evan Mast and Mike Stroud (along with another guy donning a large Afro) were the ultimate hipster musicians. 

Ascending the stage an hour late, Mast and Stroud were both dressed in skinny jeans and rumpled T-shirts.  Their mops of uncombed, greasy hair just barely let the audience see the stone face stare they made while strumming their guitars.  Stroud was the most animate of the pair and their Afro topped keyboard player was a blur of black curls as he head-banged almost the entire set.  Mast though, even when he got on the drum, remained calculated and didn’t seem to enjoy it much.

But hey, the audience loved it.  As the band played some of their top songs like “Mirando,” “Lex,” and “Loud Pipes” the crowd went wild.  Despite the venue’s “no camera” policy, it appeared everyone had their iPhones out, snapping photos of the fast moving, hair-in-the-face band as they went from one song to the next without acknowledging the audience.

Somewhere around their second to last song, Stroud mumbled a “thank you” into the microphone before delving into the catchy, cat growling, “Wildcat.”  I am not totally sure what it is about their beats that make them so appealing and danceable. In way, the songs blend together, which makes listening to a whole album easy and could be the reason Ratatat ignored their fans.  There are little to no words in any of their songs and even though they play guitar and drums the sound is completely synthetic. 

Yet, here I was, uncontrollably pleased to be shaking my hips.  My movements were mild compared to a chubby guy in thick glasses who, under the influence of the bar perhaps, cleared a space and began his rendition of break-dancing.  I almost broke out laughing.  The band did not laugh or smile. They did however come back for a two-song encore and played “Brulee” and one of my favorites, “17 Years.”  The encore wrapped up their set in just under an hour.  Off they go now to England and Europe but will be back to play Terminal 5 in September—I think I will skip that show and listen to them in the comfort of my hipster-free home.