Go! Team Wuz Good!

With their blend of schoolyard chants, '70s TV themes, and old school hip-hop, the Go! Team creates music made for summer. And since summer finally seems to be upon us, last night was the perfect time for the band, recently signed to Columbia, to play a sold-out show at Neumo's. Seattlest is happy to report that the U.K. multi-culti girl-boy indie collective lived up to our lofty expectations, as well as their own exclamation point. After their explosive performance at Intonation (can Pitchfork stop talking about it now, please?) and in their second Seattle show in as many days (they were the surprise guest at the KEXP barbeque on Sunday), the Go! Team certainly brought the rock. But before that we'd have to sit through three opening acts.

First up were the ladies of Fankick! (again with the exclamation point). For some reason, we had them confused with rival hipster dance duo Streetbeat---who did, in fact, serve Fankick! at a dance-off earlier this year. With that in mind, we were expecting two skinny boys, so it was initially kinda confusing that the dancers had breasts. Following Fankick's twenty-minute set was Saturday Knights, a hip-hop group which featured (at least according to a friend) "Uncle Kracker and Hootie." They did, however, utilize a Pixies sample, which is always appreciated. We glanced at their set from the balcony for a bit, until they wanted the crowd to say "blah blah blah." Then we were outta there.

We made our way onto the mainfloor half-way through The Long Ranger's set. The brother-sister-someotherdude electro-rock combo got the crowd moving, but by that point, everyone was more than ready for the headliners. As you may recall, yesterday was a relatively warm day, and it was certainly much warmer amidst the full house at Neumo's, even with the sun long down. When the Go! Team took the stage right before midnight, the sea o' people pressed in, making the temps feel that much higher. Then the band proceeded to work us down severely, while the crowd proceeded to dance and sweat profusely.

The band's set-up was fairly complex: two drummers, a couple electric guitars and a bass, a lotta samples, and the occasional use of recorder, banjo, keyboard, sleighbells, etc., accompanied by what can only be described as "dynamite mc-ing from pocket rocket Ninja." Unlike the far-too-typical Seattle concert experience, this crowd was really into the show, and the floor of Neumo's quickly turned into a mass of singing/dancing/jumping/sweating bodies. Even one of our companions, who swore that he was just going to stand there with his drink, found himself unable to fight the infectious energy and ended up just like the rest of us, actin' the fool. We were ecstatic to hear our favorite track "Huddle Formation," along with all the rest of Thunder, Lightning, Strike---in their one hour-ish set, they basically played the entire album and then some. Their lone encore, with its chants of "we want more," was an unreleased ditty known simply as "Untitled." Following that song, Seattlest snagged the set list and eagerly made our way out into the cool night air, the perfect ending to a great summer show.

Pics care of Flickr.com, with many thanks to ChrisB and Allan Dang.