YACHT - Dystopia
Despite every Sunday night stay-in-and-watch-HBO urge I had, last night I went to The National to see the band YACHT play. Prior to hearing about the show, I’d only heard a handful of songs and knew very little about the band itself. Since the show was on Easter, I imagine The National was having trouble selling tickets, so I was offered a free pair (thanks Lindsey!).
When I arrived, I was immediately disheartened. I knew there was trouble when I pulled up and easily found a parking spot. I had shown up between acts and there looked to be about 30 people in a venue that regularly fits 1500. And boy, did it bring back some memories. On tour with Olympia, we’d occasionally find ourselves playing a somewhat huge room to a distinctly non-huge amount of people. Don’t get me wrong, we’d also occasionally play packed out places too, but unfortunately that was a little more rare. I remember playing a room in northwest Washington once that looked like an airplane hangar to about seven disinterested-looking kids.
The thing is, when presented with that situation as a band, you can really only do one of things: let it bother/affect you and put on a half-hearted shitty show or let the fact that you’re playing to a handful of people make you act weirder/have more fun/do things you’d be less likely to do in front of a huge crowd.
I was beyond stoked when YACHT decided to do the latter.
From the very first song, I knew the show was going to be something special. They came out with the kind of energy reserved for a sold-out show and didn’t waver for a second. In addition to a great performance, they also had great stage presence and between-song banter. While experiencing some minor computer troubles, the band played an impromptu song about malfunctioning computers and followed it up with a Q&A session to kill time while the computer booted back up. I imagine they later might have regretted opening the floor to questions, but at the time it was pretty hilarious and they answered/dodged some really bizarre questions from the audience.
I should note that while our audience was small, it was also REALLY weird. Like… raver weird. But that’s not what this post is about.
So anyway, I walked into the room a total skeptic, ready to walk back home and turn on HBO at a moment’s notice. Forty five minutes later I found a new band I love and was immediately getting cash out of the ATM to buy some stuff at the merch table. I walked away with the 7” single to my favorite Yacht song (posted above) and their last record which I look forward to listening to after work today.
So, to YACHT, if by the power of the internet you happen to stumble across this blog, thank you for coming to Richmond and putting on a great show. I know it was probably a little weird and you probably lost some money and gas prices and blah blah, but we didn’t see any of that on stage. So, thank you. I hope you take the Easter holiday into consideration and don’t write off our city, because next time you come on a non-major Holiday (like Flag Day perhaps?), I will make it my mission to tell 1500 people to come out and give you the crowd y’all deserved.
To the rest of you, go pick up YACHT’s new record “Shangri-La” when it comes out this summer. Also, dance to this amazing song when I play it on Saturday at CANNONBALL!
