Hooves on the Turf

I canceled my plans of seeing Yeasayer and Chairlift last Friday so that I could go see Princeton at Union Hall instead—I wanted to catch them at least once on this tour, and I’d missed them at Pianos two days prior. When I got to Union Hall and began to realize that I was in the presence of the worst crowd ever, I wondered if I had made the strangest concert-going decision in the history of the universe.

It didn’t seem like most of those present were there for the music at all—perhaps there were a lot of high profile shows going on that night, and these people here were just for the drinks? They were irresponsive, inattentive, chatty, and shockingly unwilling to clap. It was awkward to the point of hilarity—but I don’t want to give the wrong impression, there were about two or three rows of people at the front that were listening.

Jesse Kivel, one half of the fronting twins, seemed visibly affected, jokingly saying things like, “If you shut the fuck up” and “I know this is Brooklyn, I know it’s hip here, but come on, come closer”. The performance was pretty good otherwise; if they had chosen to ignore the sorry audience and rocked out like it was their own party, it could’ve been a solid show (and I guess I’ve seen some bands pull that off). Matt, the other half of the fronting twins, was much more polite, as he softly suggested, “You guys can dance to this one” before playing “Eminent Victorians”. I was, however, entertained (to say the least) by this bit of snark from Jesse: “I’ve never heard so much chatter all my life. Guys, what’s going on? What’s important? Talk to me, we’ll sort it out. Obama’s president, we know that now. The economy’s in shit, we know that. Now what else do you have to talk about?” But, these people, they just kept talking right over him.

It was still worthwhile for me, though; I was paying attention, and was pretty excited about the new songs, which will likely go in the album that’s in the making; especially one called “Power Makes Magic”, which you can hear on their brand new session on WOXY, and another, the name of which I don’t know yet “Show Some Love, When your Man Gets Home”, that I captured in video below (the audio isn’t the greatest, but I kind of don’t mind the distortion here). I just wish it had been a “happy show” without a sour aftertaste—a heartfelt cheer to Princeton for braving it, though.

I don’t want to give too much credit to this guy, but there was a childhood friend of the band who went on stage before they did, for a comedy routine, supposedly, and he might’ve just helped set the wrong tone for the band. I don’t think he did. But! It was a somewhat unauthorized appearance, and he was mostly really bad, and I couldn’t stop laughing because he was so bad—although the one racy joke he opened with was maybe funny: “I live in Bushwick. You know who lived in my apartment before I did? [AWKWARD SILENCE] A black man!” With his bad delivery, it was especially funny at the time.

These three are screen shots from video:

Union Hall,
Brooklyn, NY
Dec 5, 2008