Pitchfork

Photos by William Kirk; Above: Band of Horses

Justice [Terminal 5; 9 p.m.]


As Justice's current tour made its way across North America over the past few weeks, reader emails bearing tales of mayhem hit Pitchfork's inbox. Rowdy mosh pits, fights, and collapsing stage-front barricades seem to follow Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay wherever they go, as our continent goes crazy for the MTV-approved Frenchmen bearing Brontosaurus riffs and caveman beats.

So when the tour hit Terminal 5 last night, I expected mass fainting, orgies, speaking in tongues. At least a little bloodshed. Well, the sold-out crowd was pumped, but not that pumped. There was a bit of pushing and lots of jumping up and down and headbanging, but no stage-diving or crowd-surfing or circle pits or anything like that. Honestly, people went crazier for M.I.A. the night before.



Regardless, Justice themselves seemed pretty stoked, or as stoked as two dudes dressed in black leather with cigarettes perpetually dangling from their lips will allow themselves to appear. But they're still just a couple guys fiddling with electronics from behind a big glowing cross. Not much to look at. No space pyramid or robot costumes or lasers or insane light show-- though the lighting guy did seem overly fond of strobes.



Augé and de Rosnay let the music provide the pyrotechnics. Tracks like "Waters of Nazareth", "Let There Be Light", and "Stress" sound great on headphones, but they're beyond massive when blasting from a killer soundsystem. Justice retained their playful side, teasing "D.A.N.C.E." throughout the night and throwing Soulwax's "NY Excuse", Klaxons' "Atlantis to Interzone", and even Metallica's "Master of Puppets" in the mix.



Terminal 5, basically a big steel cage, is perfect for an act like Justice. Where better to experience their music than a sexy jail? (Yes, I know the answer: a church. Har har.) And when the concert experience is more about watching the crowd than the performers, the venue's two-tiered balcony is perfect for viewing the main floor.

Although Terminal 5 has a capacity of 3,000, due to its narrowness it feels quite intimate. That intimacy was magnified a thousandfold during "We Are Your Friends", as the crowd chanted the chorus together in a big moment of bonding. Justice cut the music away, so that it was just one big happy chant. It was so much fun, people couldn't resist starting up again when the show was over.

Band of Horses [Bowery Ballroom; 12 a.m.]


Pretty much any venue that isn't out on a big, open prairie or carved into the side of a mountain probably isn't the perfect setting to see Band of Horses. Their wide, sky-scraping songs are made for the great outdoors. But festival season is over, and I'm not heading to the Gorge or Red Rocks any time soon, so a dark, packed club on the Lower East Side will have to do.





Luckily, lead Horseman Ben Bridwell's songs are strong enough to transcend setting, especially when he and his band are in a good mood like they were last night. Bridwell adores the Bowery Ballroom, as he repeatedly reminded us, and adores his label, Sub Pop, who the band honored with a mid-set toast.

The positive vibes seeped into Band of Horses' mellower, sadder songs, giving them a warm fuzzy feel, and amped up the rocking ones. Although Bridwell's lap steel remained on stage throughout the set, he only played a few songs sitting down. Mostly he stood, rocking out with fist in the air or hands demurely behind his back, that ever-flowing beard getting more impressive every day. He was especially excited to play a classic rawk double-neck guitar, which sounded as beautiful as it looked silly.



I like the new Band of Horses album Cease to Begin a whole lot. I think they make a helluva good country-rock band. And tunes like "Is There a Ghost", "Islands on the Coast", and "Ode to LRC" held their own against Everything All the Time's gems. The band was clearly stoked to play the new songs, and that excitement was palpable.