Last Thursday night put an end to the House of Vans celebration at Middle East Downstairs, featuring the bands Anamanaguchi, Baths, and a special guest.

The special mystery guest of the night that was advertised on all the press? Weeknight! I don’t think anyone had really heard of Weeknight prior and so the reveal was kind of a non-reveal. As best as I can understand it, this was just a last minute addition and posters had to be made prior, so they were a special guest because why not?

Weeknight is a band from New York, self-described as Electronic Dark Pop. I remember when I found out what reverb was. These two encapsulate that moment of discovery into their entire set. A gentleman on guitar, a lady on drum machines and keyboards, so washed away by reverb and delay that I couldn’t hear anything they said. That would be fine, but the music wasn’t particularly memorable. It had sort of a Joy Division-meets-replacing-the-bass-and-drums-with-computers feel.

I’m alone on this one, though. The crowd was into it.

L.A. Synth-pop project Baths (yes, that’s the website) came next. Baths was a similar setup, another electro-pop duo, this one with one guy playing synths and drum machines, the other (I’m led to believe this is his project, since only he was drawn on the awesome limited edition posters) on vocals and occasional keys.

But it was much more my speed. The vocals and sound were very reminiscent of Passion Pit, tons of falsetto and dancier beats.

As the set progressed, I feel like the sound shifted greatly. It got much heavier, the dance gave way to harder and harder dubstep, so the danciness got more and more harried. Toward the end of the set, a lot of the sounds started to border on Screamo, which got away from me. I can’t read a crowd, I’m sure they were still fine with it. But it was surreal to hear Jonathan Davis-esque vocals over Deadmau5-esque beats. They closed with a song similar to how they opened, so I’m guessing (hoping) they were just dipping into older material toward the end there.

If you’re not familiar with Anamanaguchi‘s gimmick, here it is: one of their main instruments is a hacked Nintendo Entertainment System, so almost all of their riffs are glitchy 8-bit chiptune, while the rest of the music is chugging punk guitars, bass, and drums.  If you want to hear more about that, you can check out an interview with Peter Berkman on one of my favorite podcasts: http://jeffrubinjeffrubinshow.com/episode/episode-1-peter-berkman/

In terms of the music, there’s not a whole lot to say more than that. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the show started with fast instrumental punk with the chip-tune (as well as occasional auto-tuned or glitchy vocal) overlaid and the pace didn’t really change except for the occasional picking-up and subsequent dropping of the bass. The hacked Nintendo wasn’t as obvious as I would have figured based on how largely it factors into the music—my best guess, and I had a good view of the band, is that the drummer is hitting pads so that the prerecorded chip-tune can keep up with their live instruments.

The show was a great one though. The stage and the first few rows of support beams into the crowd had lit-up rods that reacted with the pace of the music, further supporting the drum pad theory. On either side of the stage were glowing cubes (similar to the one on the cover of their newest album, Endless Fantasy) about two feet wide. The colors shifted between a few neon staples, but projected in them were all sorts of images that had either nothing or everything to do with the songs that were being played. Anime schoolgirls, pixelated mountains spinning on a cube, and an 8-bit bowing holy figure set the mood for a unique band that were just there to enjoy themselves.

The crowd was rocking respectfully for about a song or two, then the crowd-surfing began. Everyone was pretty surprised with how the security guard yanked the kid, who was being passed around, up on stage, pulled him behind and pushed him out the roped off lane coming out of the backstage. Then it happened again. And again. It was pretty distracting, and so in between a couple songs, Peter Berkman, guitarist and frontman by default (no one’s singing, but he’s in the middle) told the staff that they were fine with the crowd-surfing and kids washing up on stage. I really liked how into the crowd this band was, that was a great move. Except that now the band was barely visible behind people jumping up on stage, gesturing to their friends, then jumping off. But the music never stopped, the band and crowd were having a fucking blast, so I guess there are worse things.

I got a free shirt but all they had left was sleeveless and there’s no way in a million years I can pull that look off.

Anamanaguchi

Baths

Weeknight