RATATAT >> was live and direct in Tempe for a monster show at Marquee Theatre on Monday night. Thankfully, the electro-rock duo is among many artists who choose to spend their time between Coachella weekend sets playing another nearby desert fortunate to always get the festival talent spillover this time of year.
It was 9:15-ish when the Marquee bar line got a little thinner and the crowd of smokers on the venue's patio began to dissipate. The intermittent thumps that rattled the shitty artwork on the walls above the potties and the Poltergeist-like flashes on the screen on stage meant that RATATAT's Mike Stroud and Evan Mast were about to get down. As they took stage, the panels on each side of them lit up and housed images to compliment the earlier flashes and further captivate the audience.
Quickly it was loud guitars and deep fucking bass and drum machines all beautifully coordinated to a thousand creatures dancing before flashes, lasers and holograms of busts, tripped-out cubes and octopus-armed babies running endlessly. It didn't make sense to me either but my hypnosis was only in agreement with my feet moving like a dream to the 'Loud Pipes' that was blaring.
What followed was a healthy mixture of more Classics tracks like my favorite 'Wildcat' and some other illness from LP3 and LP4. They even set it off with a new god sent track called 'Cream On Chrome' which is really fucking dope. Trust me, you need this in and around your ears immediately.
I imagine this set was similar to what the Coachellans saw this weekend in Indio and although I'm bummed I missed out on the festival this year, I'm happy to say that I finally got to scratch RATATAT off my bucket list and at a very intimate show in comparison to the Sahara tent.
If you are lucky enough to be at the Coachella sequel next weekend or in a city where RATATAT is coming I highly recommend checking them out. Your earholes and eyeballs and feet and balls will be ecstatic.
marc
