#django django

Last Friday night, British four piece Django Django brought their inaugural US tour to Union Transfer and showed Philadelphians just what their built up hype is all about. 

London's Django Django have been making upbeat indie dance meets weird psych tunes since 2009. Ever since meeting at Edinburgh College of Art, the four members have been crafting and shaping their sound in drummer/producer David Maclean’s East London bedroom. Three years later Maclean and company finally released the fruits of their labor to the world. In January of last year, Django Django released their debut self-titled album. Even though their debut full length record out over a year ago, it took Django Django just over a full year to give the United States a full, proper tour. Joining them for the special occasion were Minneapolis' Night Moves.

Night Moves did not share the same experience as Django Django of gracing Philadelphia for the first time. The Minneapolis four piece recently visited the city back in January for a small show at Kung Fu Necktie. This time around they played on a much bigger stage infront of a much bigger audience. While Union Transfer was slow to fill up but about half way through their set, the room was getting close to capacity. Despite being newcomers to an audience of the size of a sold out Union Transfer, Night Moves played like seasoned veterans.

Led by the powerful vocals and entertaining stage presence in lead singer/guitarist John Pelant, the Twin Cities act blazed through their 40 minute without skipping a beat. Their sound had clear influences from ‘70s acts like Neil Young and Dylan but with a modern twist and touches of MGMT-esque psych music blended together.  Pelant’s smooth vocals and jangly guitar were met multiple times with harmonies from fellow members Micky Alfano and Mark Ritsema. Tune after tune, this combination produced polished, radio friendly songs. In between songs different bandmates shared stories like how each city they play at always cheers when they were that the band is from Minneapolis. They also described their last visit to Philadelphia, which included the worker at one of the corner stores tried to sell them a taser.

Once Night Moves finished playing, the long process of setting up the stage for Django Django began. For just the four of them, there was a rather elaborate stage set up. Between the stage lights, projector, keyboard world and drum set the band finally took to the stage once all of the proper sound checking had finished. The British group started the night by thanking the sold out crowd for coming out and reminding them that this was their first time playing Philadelphia. They then shared their deep love for the TLC show Trading Spaces and their goal of finding the best cheesesteak in the city.

The group had already given the city a taste of their live sound as they paid a visit to World Cafe Live for WXPN's Free At Noon series. Hours later they continued to show the city just exactly why their debut self-titled album was so critically acclaimed. Once they played through their opening set “Hail Bop”, a slow burner full of lush harmonies, the band set the crowd crazy with dance tune after dance tune.

Songs like the single “Default”, “Love’s Dart” and “Skies Over Cairo” gave the fans plenty of material to get down to. At the same time it demonstrated just how wide-ranged their influences were. “Default” is the clear-cut Britpop gem. “Skies Over Cairo” mixes fuzzy, round synth melodies a la The Kaiser Chiefs with more worldly feel; one that Brooklyn’s Yeasayer have become famous for. They ended the set with “Silver Rays”, which mixes their own vocal harmonies with a dance beat that is reminiscent to The Rapture back in their Echoes-era. Despite all of these dance tunes, they also managed to slow things down with the mellow “Firewater” tune that features lazy, almost Old Western style acoustic guitar to it.

It was impressive seeing the young band able to not only create an array of songs that blended genres to this extent, but to also work them together into a cohesive live set.  On top of all of this they played with such energy and emotion, it was almost impossible to not feed off of it. The four guys in Django Django proved to Philadelphia just what they are made of in an excellent debut show for the city of brotherly love. Now let’s just hope it doesn’t take them just as long to come back around again.