LA WeeklyTokyo Police Club
Hammer Museum, July 24, 2008
By Gina Pollack
Crowd surfing. Not an everyday sighting for an art museum. But if an onlooker stumbled upon the Hammer on the last night of the summer music series, they would have seen their fair share of teenage bodies floating over a riled crowd.
(Photo by Timothy Norris. Click here to see more.)
Tokyo Police Club headlined while Afternoons opened on Thursday, bringing their punchy post-punk melodies to the Hammer’s outdoor courtyard. The museum was impressively transformed into a first-rate concert venue, with glowing lights and surrounding trees contributing to the ambiance. Hosted by local tastemaker station Indie 103.1, the show was free and open to the public. Although lines formed around the block of Wilshire and Westwood early, most everyone made their way in smoothly, avoiding the chaos of other free shows.
After an enlightening performance by the Los Angeles natives, Afternoons, Tokyo Police Club took the stage, launching into their fast-paced anthems to the delight of the crowd, which piled into the courtyard and learned over balcony railings on the upper level of the museum.
(Photo by Timothy Norris. Click here to see more.)
The t-shirt and jean clad band members took unfamiliar audience members by surprise with their early 20-something ages. The quartet could have easily been the boys from the garage band next door. But a young age certainly didn’t hinder the talent of these suburban Ontario natives, who formed in 2005 during their senior year of high school, naming the band after a lyric in one of their songs.
(Photo by Gina Pollack. Click here to see more.)
Dave Monks, lead vocalist and bassist, thin and blue eyed with a head of tousled blond hair, stole the show, delivering song after song of energy-infused indie rock. Summoning the “grand crowd” to open for him with a “1, 2, 1234,” Monks got the audience clapping for the intro to the melodically heart-racing “Citizens of Tomorrow.” “We used to do our own intro to this song, but then we thought who better to do it than you?” he said, smiling as fans cheered from below the stage with a barrage of digital cameras set to record.
(Photo by Timothy Norris. Click here to see more.)
Towards the end of the concert, it seemed that everyone had inhaled a little too much of Tokyo Police Clubs’ adrenaline pumping tunes. Crowd members climbed high into the courtyard tree, dancing and swinging from is branches. Teen arms and legs flew through the air, as the crowd pushed and jumped to the vigorous “In A Cave.” By the end of the night, it was no surprise that Tokyo Police Club had everyone rooting for them.
Tokyo Police Club play September 18th at the Henry Fonda Theater.
(Photo by Gina Pollack.)
(Photo by Gina Pollack.)
(Photo by Gina Pollack.
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