Live review: The Walkmen @ Satellite Ballroom, Charlottesville [3.12.08]

As a native of the greater Washington Metropolitan area, I’d seen the Walkmen plenty of times, usually at ridiculously packed-to-the-gills weekend shows at the Black Cat. As the draw of the Walkmen increased so too did the temperature inside, making the long, low upstairs of the Black Cat feel like a hipster sauna. As a rule, these shows were almost always great, and kinda felt like house parties (you know, the kind you see in teen movies, where every kid within a ten mile radius is there, rocking out to some long-haired band in cut off shorts and sipping spiked punch out of a plastic cup). Perhaps not exactly, but given that DC is the former home of the Walkmen, there was always that friendly, we-knew-you-when vibe. Having since moved from the DC area, I was curious to see the Walkmen outside of the friendly confines of their homeland of yore, and see whether the joyful abandon of DC shows past would follow them to the hallowed, Jeffersonian streets of Charlottesville.
After a sparse early going, the Satellite Ballroom got nice and cozy, with a youthful crowd eagerly gazing at the stage, waiting for the likely lads to appear. And finally, the lights dimmed, and appear they did, to enthusiastic cheers from the pretty full house. The quintet seemed in relaxed yet high spirits as they meandered through a set filled heavily with newer material, even dedicating a song to disgraced NY governor Spitzer. It could just have been my imagination, but I gauged the Walkmen to be a little more at ease as they powered through their set, like there was less a sense of performance anxiety. “Little House of Savages” was the standout of the set for me, with statuesque mouthpiece Hamilton Leithauser sounding intensely, yet functionally, scratchy. Perhaps this’ll come off as somewhat sacrilegious, so sue me, but at times Leithauser seemed to be channeling Faces-era Rod Stewart mixed with very early Dylan. And the instrumentations and machinations provided by Messrs. Walt, Paul, Matt, and Pete were quite possibly as in synch as I’d ever seen them. Which means it all sounded pretty darned good.
The dapper dandies maybe their way through eleven songs before ambling offstage, only to reemerge a few short moments later for an encore that was lustily received by the increasingly intoxicated patrons, comprised of four songs they “forgot to play.” The Satellite Ballroom version of “What’s In It for Me” came off as less brusque and even more organy than on Bows + Arrows. “The Rat” caused much excitement, as is to be expected by this point, and was appropriately frenzied but not quite out of control. The excellent cover of Mazarin’s “Another One Goes By” followed. It was my first time hearing it live, and I’ve got to give the band credit for their reinterpretation of a song I thought couldn’t be successfully covered. I wasn’t totally won over by the song’s inclusion on A Hundred Miles Off, but they got me with the live version. Very subtle. The final song of the evening was unnamed, one of the new songs the boys have been tweaking over the many months since the last album release. It was catchy, go figure, and features many mentions of a “silver lining.”
When it was all over, the crowd rapidly departed, leaving behind a feeling of warmth and contentment, and not just with their beverages. The Walkmen tonight were congenial, entirely pleasant, and mollified all my curiosities about their performance outside the four quadrants of DC. Well done, boys. Well done.

[Words by Megan Petty]
[Photos by PJ Sykes]