By: admin Category: MUSIC Date: 7.Jun.2011

I stood in the growing line outside Mercury Lounge. “Is it sold out?” people whispered over their shoulders, but the words got stuck, unanswered, in thick air. It was sold out, I’d later find, and the throng of fans were bubbling with excitement. They all seemed to know each other. They high five-ed and cut the line. “Sure, sure, go ahead,” I smiled, and nodded them on. In the main room I leaned inconspicuously against things, waiting for the headliner to take the stage. It would be the first time that I heard The Postelles. Encouraged by the anticipation of the dark figures flooding the room, I started bobbing my head a bit to the pre-show music. “It’s always the same eighty friends,” one said to another, and I assumed he was referring to the simmering crowd, the apparently familiar audience. But these weren’t the brooding live-music regulars who saunter throughout the alleyways of the Lower East Side like needlessly angry cats. I should totally be friends with these people, I thought, inching closer to them. Then I should hang out with the band afterward. Maybe they would introduce me to The Strokes and I could marry one (an hour earlier I’d read Albert Hammond Jr. produced the Postelles record). But before I got to make any friends or husbands I got lost in the groovy, frothing sound coming from the band now before me—especially from the tiny, powerful Postelles frontman, Daniel Balk—and I was dancing. Everyone was dancing.

The music was the kind of indie-rock I’d expected: raspy, catchy, island-y, and organized with a strong but boyish voice on top. They reminded me of Vampire Weekend; after some post-show research I discovered they’d opened for them. And they fit cozily in their producer’s circle—I imagined Alby watching proudly like a guardian angel, the band looking up misty-eyed, still panting and sweaty after their packed show. But what impressed me most was the effect The Postelles had on the people at their feet. They were singing; they knew every lyric. When invited on stage to sing back up, they scrambled eagerly aboard. Perhaps it is because they grew up here that The Postelles already inhabits a nook deep in the hearts, pumping loud and thirsty, of these NYC-ers—and the feel-good music seemed to be sinking sweetly further into the pleasure points of those who were swaying with eyes closed. But I’m sure I’d find similarly enamored turn outs at their upcoming shows around the country. During their show, the energy of the audience and of these young musicians played like puppies. First a group of high school pals, their live chemistry creates a raw, exciting quality and sound that their self-titled first album, released June 7th, doesn’t do justice. It was a funky party, not a solitary, fixed experience, and at midnight we—yes, I finally felt a part of the group—wanted much more.