ACL Review: Two Door Cinema Club

Blinding light suddenly flooded the Cirrus Logic stage, Zombie Nation’s “Kernkraft 400” blasting from the speakers as hordes of teens launched into full-blown mania. Frantically fumbling with my fest schedule, yours truly was convinced she’d wandered into some EDM bullshit instead of Two Door Cinema Club’s 7:30pm Saturday set.

When glow sticks started raining from the sky, the hyperactive, uneasy opening notes to “Cigarettes in the Theatre” began. Nope, right stage. Turns out it was simply my idea of the Emerald Isle act that dialed in way passé.

2010 debut Tourist History seemed a surefire way to cement Two Door Cinema Club’ as new darlings of the cerebral indie rock sphere inhabited by Passion Pit and Vampire Weekend. Then their watery sophomore effort of 2012 and a subsequent hiatus put the band in limbo. In Zilker Park, the North Irish fourpiece made it clear they’ve reinvented themselves:

Much heavier on the “pop” half of synth-pop than their earlier work.

New cut “Are We Ready? (Wreck)” boasted a singsong-y chorus sample and groovier guitar line, but “Gameshow” offered watered-down funk, vocalist Alex Trimble employing an unpleasant falsetto that plays better on the studio version. Both were bass-heavy and ready for radio, pushing the group closer to the boy band lexicon of the 1975.

The shimmer of older works like “Something Good Can Work,” “Undercover Martyn,” and the surprising, a cappella start to hit “What You Know” held up, but the band seemed more keen on the newer material. High energy and jangly, Two Door Cinema Club still posed no chance of overshadowing the bigger acts of the evening’s end-run of headliners, but their set acted as a fitting warm-up for Kygo and Kendrick Lamar.