Ratatat continued the weekend’s electronic flow Sunday night with a killer performance packed with heavy visuals and stomping beats. They opened with an image of water dripping on the screen, and simultaneously reproduced the sound of water falling, sonically. An enormous guitar riff brought that to a close, bringing Mike Stroud and Evan Mast to the stage, and the crowd's response to their arrival was almost as gigantic as the music.
The imagery on the screen varied as Ratatat laid down thick beats and funky rhythms, and it worked best when they projected curious patterns of birds and other strange objects. It got straight up creepy when they started playing video of David Lynch-like humans smiling at us with their eyes wide open. Highlights were definitely “Mandy” and “Neckbrace,” as both contained highly infectious grooves and fantastic visuals. The latter featured the video that had been released for the song a few months ago.
“Loud Pipes,” by far my favorite of the pair’s songs over the years, was started in awesomely subdued format, only to later be transformed into a robotic grind. It was almost as enticing as “Wildcat,” which was smooooth, but dirty in all the right places. In all, every track Ratatat gave us compacted themselves into an intensely sweet ride, and for that, I’ve happily still got their music ringing in my ears.
