Track Rabbit with Le Firm - The Mercury Lounge (New York) - Tuesday, June 19, 2007

by Rachel Pesin
5 July 2007

I’ve patiently waited seven years (to turn 21) to go to The Mercury Lounge and I’m happy to report that my first time there was a success. I’ve always imagined Mercury Lounge to be the Holy Grail of Indie, so you can imagine my surprise when I walked in and found a cubicle crowd instead of a group of hipsters. It didn’t matter to me because the audience was into the band onstage, and that’s all that really matters.

Said band, LE FIRM, was great and were just what I needed to get out of a bad mood. I was feeling severely under the weather and almost didn’t show up; I’m glad I did! At times Le Firm reminded me of LONGWAVE with their warm guitar sounds but overall had a more upbeat, pop sound, which was fine with me. I like when the support band has a similar sound to the headliner because it means I’m likely to leave with a new band to get into, just like on this night.

I had only heard of headliners TRACK RABBIT (full band name: PT WALKLEY AND THE ADVENTURES OF TRACK RABBIT) a few days before on MySpace but liked their sound enough to see them live. Ever since BRENDAN BENSON, one of my favorite musicians, put his solo career on hold to join THE RACONTEURS I have been waiting for a band/singer to fill the void, and these guys do just that. PT WALKLEY’s vocals are eerily similar to Benson’s and the band, for the most part, plays pure, blissful power pop.

The band’s music translated well onstage and they were a lot of fun. They joked around with the crowd, and even had some audience members effectively join the band by playing the tambourine and the egg shaker throughout the set. The first highlight of the night was when the three band members surrounded PT and played us a “campfire” song with PT singing without his microphone. The other highlight was when they played the incredibly catchy “Up the Walls.” It’s one of those songs that you swear you’ve heard before and once you have heard it you won’t be able to get it out of your head. Job well done!

Filed under concerts power pop