It would have been difficult for even the most seasoned showgoer to prepare for The Walkmen to take the stage at Webster Hall Monday night (April 24). For starters, prior to their show last Saturday (April 22) in Rhode Island, the band hadn’t performed a proper public concert since February of 2014 in New Orleans, right after announcing they would be taking an “extreme hiatus”.
But the Big Apple is a city of first, second and even third chances and much like a beloved prizefighter returning to the ring, The Walkmen delivered knockout punch after knockout punch in a roaring, 22-song, career-spanning setlist last night, one that proved to the Manhattan crowd watching that this is more than just a reunion tour.
Despite being away for a decade, the band hasn’t exactly rested on its laurels, be it Hamilton Leithauser’s annual residency at New York City’s Cafe Carlyle, drummer Matt Barrick’s work in indie supergroup Muzz, or ambitious solo projects from Walter Martin, Peter Matthew Bauer and Paul Maroon.
But The Walkmen all back together again? What does that sound, look and feel like now? Any doubts of the band’s vitality are immediatley quieted as they launch into dramatic show opener ‘They’re Winning’ lifted from their 2002 debut LP ‘Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone’. The track owes a debt of gratitude to the operatic stylings of Jonathan Fire*Eater, the band Martin, Barrick and Maroon were in decades ago, and its urgency and tempo set the tone for the night and the next four nights of shows the band plans on bringing to the East Village venue.
The show kicks into high gear just three songs in, with a ripping take on the band’s biggest hit, indie classic ‘The Rat’. It’s one of six songs off 2004’s ‘Bows & Arrows’ the band plays during the evening and each sounds as fresh and driving as the day they were released and the frenzied New York City crowd nearly drown out Leithauser as they shout the chorus back at him. Frontman Leithauser is dapper as ever in a tasteful black jacket and crisp white button-down, stalking the stage, pointing at the crowd and pumping his fist.
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While ‘The Rat’ catapults the show into another level, ‘On the Water’ off 2008’s sleeper classic, ‘You & Me’ arrives with a sound that seems beamed in from a crackly LP in your living room storage crate.’Blue as Your Blood’ and ‘Angela Surf City’ both off 2010’s ‘Lisbon’, get their due within the set’s first 11 songs, and it’s at that point in the show you realize: It’s been far too long, and The Walkmen almost sound like they never left. In a fierce show of gratitude from the devout crowd, ‘Four Provinces’ is greeted with a rousing singalong that stretches from the stage to Webster Hall’s back balcony.
The gig rages on, with simmering debut album rager ‘Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone’ followed quickly by a crashing, shaking rendition of ‘Little House of Savages’.Leithauser delivers every line with gusto, and the crowd responds in kind. By the time the main set draws to a close with a goosebumps-inducing rendition of 2012 favourite ‘Heaven’ it’s clear The Walkmen are more than worthy of being in the ring again.
The Walkmen played:
‘They’re Winning’
‘Wake Up’
‘The Rat’
‘In the New Year’
‘On the Water’
‘No Christmas While I’m Talking’
‘Blue as Your Blood’
‘Juveniles’
‘Four Provinces’
‘Dónde Está La Playa’
‘Angela Surf City’
‘The Blizzard of ‘96’
‘New Years Eve’
‘Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone’
‘Little House of Savages’
‘138th Street’
‘All Hands and the Cook’
‘Heaven’
Encore:
‘Thinking of a Dream I Had’
‘Canadian Girl’
‘Louisiana’
‘We’ve Been Had’