Shake it like a bad girl up in Harlem

After almost two months of concert withdrawal, I FINALLY went to my first show of 2014 last night: New Politics.

Soren, Louis, and David.

At least two of them are from Denmark (I believe Louis, the drummer who replaced their original Danish drummer, is American…don’t quote me on it, though!), which is awesome because I don’t remember ever listening to a Danish band before.

I heard “Harlem” on idobi radio a few months ago, made a note to download it, and then forgot about it again until New Year’s Eve when they played in Vegas. Ten seconds after their performance ended, I looked up tour dates and texted Ro with “I just found our January concert”.

Contrary to what Ro, Nina and I thought, the lyric is NOT “shake it like a black girl up in Harlem”. Even though it sounds like it is.

I don’t really remember much about the two opening bands, Sleeper Agent and Magic Man. They were enjoyable in that “they’re the opening band so I’ll listen to them politely, clap when prompted, and maybe tap my feet to the catchy songs, but mainly I want them to go away so that I can see the band I want to see” way.

New Politics came on at 10pm, and played a solid 16-17 songs, including a cover of Justin Timberlake’s “My Love” plus about five minutes of lead singer David break dancing across the stage, which is kind of his thing. The only problem is his skillz are hard to appreciate when you’re standing at the back of the room and you can’t really see the stage because of the crowd. So we basically just saw his flailing arms and legs (Nina, at one point, described the moves as being similar to the Muppets).

Despite the poor sight line, they still put on a super fun show – lots of dancing, little bits of screaming (especially in the older songs), and tons of enthusiasm (mainly from the band, though I think the crowd in the “pit” were more responsive than the people standing near the back – excluding us, I mean, since we were clearly dancing). We couldn’t understand Soren (the “o” in his name has a line through it, but I don’t know how to do that) whenever he spoke, but whether it was due to an accent (what does a Danish accent sound like, anyway?), or because he was practically eating the microphone, I’m still not sure.

Either way, they were great, I’ve been singing “Tonight You’re Perfect” in my head on and off since I woke up, and I’m definitely looking forward to singing/dancing along in June when they open the Fall Out Boy/Paramore tour!