We randomly checked out the Walkmen and Kaiser Chiefs show at the Showbox last night, mostly in the dark about their work. Although we had seen the Walkmen live once before, we couldnt remember if they had made much of an impression. During the opening, a friend summed up their sound as "like the Strokes except not irritating." That's a good enough summary although we'd swap out the Strokes with Rod Stewart, who Walkmen lead singer Hamilton Leithauser sounds exactly like and if you don't agree then fuck you.

Our friend who tagged along with us was more familiar with and enthusiastic about Kaiser Chiefs who he favorably compared to Franz Ferdinand: all high energy, bubble gum crack British pop. We saw no convincing argument to the contrary.

The show was good overall. Both groups showed a lot of energy and enthusiasm with a clean sound that explains their broad appeal. The Walkmen's opening song - with some plaintive whine that sounded like "What happened to you?" (song title? Bueller?) - was their best, and Kaiser Chiefs seemed to just explode on the stage without warning, which is definitely a good sign since most shows seem to take forever to get going. Of course we couldnt decipher their lyrics at all and had to look things up online later. We're kind of glad about that though, after reading this caustic Pitchfork review of Yours Truly, Angry Mob:

If "Mob" ended with that bit of resignation, it would be fine, but the coda brings the groans, explaining the titular mass not as rowdy bar patrons or concert attendees, but society itself: "We are the angry mob, we read the papers everyday/ We like who we like, we hate who we hate, but we're oh so easily swayed."

Sounds inane, but at least they put on a good live performance. We've had better times at the Showbox - that one Ween show in the late 90s when a wasted Dean Ween dove in to the audience and we grabbed his head with both hands, nearly decapitating him when the audience surged forward lifting him up; that New Years Eve 1999 Murder City Devils show where we watched a cocky drunk friend of ours dance/ass grind some woman he didnt know for an hour or more until the lights came on and he discovered she wasnt exactly his type; David Schmader's indescribably brilliant and hilarious Showgirls thing - but we've had way worse times at the Showbox as well. We'll give last night's show an arbitrary three out of five stars like its a netflix movie we watched all the way through before returning.