The Wake

The Walkmen leisurely claimed the 400 Bar stage as their own, clad in light sweaters and button down shirts. Surprisingly un-hipster, they resembled average twenty-something easterners while strapping on their guitars and letting out the first few organ notes of “What’s In it For Me,” the first track off of their spectacularly moody new LP, Bows & Arrows. Singer Hamilton Leithauser questioned with his trademark wail, “What’s in it for me/ I came here for a good time/ Now you’re telling me to leave.” Just then, the drums kicked in - and the show was forever changed.

Drummer Matt Barrick began a rapturous assault upon his kit – arms raised high again and again before crashing them down against the snare. Eyes wide open, his face seemed to be in convulsions – but happy convulsions. As hard as it was to take my eyes off the percussive display before me, Leithauser was now leaning dangerously over a monitor speaker, gaining support from the first row’s eager hands and shoulders, as he sang so hard it looked like he may vomit.

Damn, I thought, and this is one of their slow songs.

What followed was an hour-long aural assault on the audience - the band hardly taking breaks between songs.

These boys knew how to put on a show. This figures, as three of the five earned their stripes as members of 1990s New York City garage rockers Jonathan Fire*Eater. After Fire*Eater disbanded, the three (guitarist Paul Maroon, organist Walter Martin and drummer Barrick) set out to begin a new band, eventually joining bassist Peter Bauer and Leithauser (Martin’s cousin), who had been playing together in The Recoys. Though now based in New York City, all Walkmen originally met while growing up in Washington D.C.

In 2002, they released their first full-length, Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone, to critical praise. The album’s organ, guitar and piano driven songs expressed regret, loss and confusion with penetrating rhythms from Barrick and emotive Leithauser vocals, drawing comparisons to early U2. The album spawned “We’ve Been Had,” which strangely went on to be featured in a Saturn commercial. Leithauser labled the song “the one that started it all” before Maroon began to plod out its waltzy piano intro. But this came mid-way through the show. The Walkmen continued through the beginning of their set with their most intense musical statements.

They moved from one of their “slow” songs, “What’s In It For Me,” to their most ferocious, “The Rat,” the first single off of Bows. Maroon began with the song’s aggressive down strum attack, only to be matched in intensity by another percussive onslaught by Barrick, an epic organ line, and finally, the song’s rapidly built tension was released by Leithauser’s sneering delivery (“Youu’ve got a neeerve to be aasking a faavor/ Youu’ve got a neerve to be caalling my number/ I know/ Wee’ve been through this before”).

With the measured delivery of “138th Street,” a Lower East Side lullaby comprised of only guitar, organ and vocals by Leithauser and Martin, the 400 Bar crowd which had only just been feeding off the wild energy of “The Rat” suddenly became silently engrossed with the tale of a young New Yorker who has run out of new bars to attend, and must re-evaluate their life.

As The Walkmen continued to march through material from their two LPs, the band’s movements became a show in themselves. Barrick continued to flail his drumsticks to and fro while Maroon, irrespective of any song’s rhythm, swiveled his torso back and forth above his motionless hips and gazed blankly above the heads of the crowd before him. Bauer’s full body twitched as he hammered notes from his bass, back turned to the audience. Leithauser was a demonstration in kinetics, moving from one monitor to another; leaning forward and slinking back again, looking as if he may pass out with his next heavily delivered syllable. Sometimes he’d pause for a moment on stage, singing with one hand in his pocket, only to rapidly rush back on top of the monitors.

The performance was consistently brilliant. Each song was a highlight.

The Walkmen briefly left the stage before returning for an encore. The closer “Rue The Day” is perhaps their most wistful composition. Maroon’s charged guitar intro led to more impassioned Leithauser vocals and urgent Marrick drumming. During a hushed bridge, Leithauser took a moment to acknowledge each member of the band, before continuing, “I’d be lying if I said your name never/ Came up as/ I’d be thinking of just hoow I’d like to cash my days in now/ And all I eever do is think of yesterday/ God it’s hard to stand up straight.” Drums crashed in as the song steadily built to climax.

After his final word was sung, Leithauser unplugged his mic from its cord, laid it on the stage and deliberately walked off. The rest were left to pound out a few more intoxicating bars before joining their bandmate in exit, leaving behind them a wholly sincere and entirely unpretentious performance.