Deerhunter @ Neumos

Bradford Cox is a darling. His stage presence, his affability, and the mind bending performance of him and everyone else in Deerhunter renewed my faith in pop music.

The set was heavy on the new album, which was fine with me. I'll admit that I didn't like Cryptograms, especially the singles. Songs off the new album are far more sonically cohesive, less post-punk collage and more pleasantly referential to 60s and 70s pop, of which I am a huge fan.

The better of the two opening bands, New Times Viking, sounded like No Age with a synth keyboard, and I remember telling everyone near me. I was a little drunk.

I shook hands with Cox outside while he was having a cigarette by the Neumos stage door. Hours later at a party in the University district, I was still completely starstruck. As the cops were clearing out the party, and people were laughing about their hapless friends, locked in bathrooms, doing blow, all I could think about was the heavy, yet somehow, delicate sounds, still bouncing around in my ringing ears.

Stay tuned for impressions from other PA writers.