KLAXONS | URBAN OUTFITTERS 4/15, SCHUBAS 4/16
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Klaxons were at the Urban Outfitters in Wicker Park on Sunday thanks to Toyota, which is aggressively marketing its Yaris models to hipsters. Two Yarises were parked out in front of the store; one had a stripe job that looked like something you’d find on a 15-year-old sweatshirt dragged out of a bin at Village Discount and the other was equipped with a thumping sound system and a huge flat-screen TV that erupted out of the rear hatch at the touch of a button and broadcast the goings-on inside the store. When I showed up at around 5 PM there wasn’t anything going on inside, but the line out front ran down most of the block. There were probably 200 people, mostly girls who looked to be in their early 20s, standing there squinting in the sunlight–I recognized lots of them from going to DJ nights at Sonotheque and Tini Martini. It was like the contents of a 4 AM club had been dumped right into the middle of post-brunch-family-stroll time.
When the store finally let the fans in, they almost filled what’s normally the home decor section but had been redone for the day as a performance area. The band seemed uncomfortable, despite the abundance of neon-colored decor, clearly an homage to their aesthetic: “I think this is the first time we’ve played in daylight,” announced Jamie Reynolds, the scruff-bearded bassist who handles most of the lead vocals. But they were game. They opened with “Atlantis to Interzone,” easily the raviest song in their small catalog with its howling synths and uh-uh-uhh vocal sample. The fans gave as good as they got, returning the band’s energy with crude gyrations and pogo jumps, and Klaxons rewarded the first row by passing around beers from their stash. Deeper in the crowd people shared cocktails smuggled in juice bottles–I got a swig of somebody’s vodka and OJ–and guitarist Simon Taylor-Davis interviewed someone’s girlfriend over speakerphone by holding his cell up to the mike. People even crowd surfed. It was killer. Klaxons ended the show by blowing a fuse midway through their last song. Straight-leg corduroys and “diner cups” were on sale, but I don’t even know if the registers were open.
For more on music, see our blogs Crickets and Post No Bills at chicagoreader.com.
