Live Shots

Yeasayer

Yeasayer’s Saturday night set justified their sold-out weekend stand at La Zona Rosa, inspiring a rave-up in spite of the extreme complexity and intricacy of their electro-shocked pulses. They were helped by their handpicked opener Javelin, which set the bar so incredibly low that whatever followed couldn’t help but surpass it. While Javelin’s off-kilter brand of real-time mash-up records well enough, the Brooklyn duo’s live combination is a train wreck of poor singing and disjointed beats, stumbling through mismatched moments of “Sunglasses at Night,” “Tracks of My Tears,” and even “Frère Jacques.” Yet if Javelin represents the kind of clutter accumulated in busted Brooklyn apartments, Yeasayer lighthouses the borough’s still-trendsetting relevance. Emerging silhouetted against a throbbing, lighted backdrop, the quintet opened on the industrial clang and intense vocoder vocals of “The Children” from recent sophomore LP, Odd Blood. “Rome” electrified the room with scattershot synth jolts accentuating Chris Keating’s clipping falsetto, while world-tinged rhythms tripped behind 2007 debut All Hour Cymbals‘ “Wait for the Summer.” At times, Yeasayer’s density and insistence on effects burdened the set, as with “2080,” but the band has perfected a blend of Animal Collective calamity with gigantic, Genesis-manifested tom-trampling percussion as on “Madder Red.” The cascading keys of “I Remember” melted into the exceptional “Tightrope,” and “O.N.E.” delivered dance floor manna. Closing the set with Odd Blood lead single “Ambling Alp,” Yeasayer proved they can have it both ways: uncompromisingly contorting arrangements burgeoning into remarkably infectious indie anthems.

This article appears in April 16 • 2010.