Operators at Baby's All Right (June 13, 2014)

Operators, the new band of Dan Boeckner, played their first New York show during Northside Fest on June 13 over at Baby’s All Right. As a huge fan of Wolf Parade, as well as Dan’s other work with Handsome Furs and Divine Fits, I was very excited to see what the band could do, especially after hearing the very promising first single “True.”

First up were New York band Motion Studies whose seven members barely fit on the stage. The band is the project of Tyler McCauley, whose influences come from the same place as disco revivalists such as LCD Soundsystem. Disco dance-rock that channeled James Murphy’s band very much so. It was a fun set.

Philadelphia 4-piece Little Big League were up next and dabbled with 90s inspired guitar grooves. There’s a youthful, almost slacker-nature to their songs, that is countered nicely by Michelle Zauner’s vocals. The group has a split single with Ovlov coming out soon, and you can stream two tracks from it right here.

Finally, the time for Operators to hit the stage arrived and they were all smiles. As Dan put it, it was the bands “fourth or five show ever”, making it all the more interesting to see how it would go down. Fear not, as Boeckner, Sam Brown and Devojka are already a formidable trio who played as if they have been a touring band for years. They had me, and the rest of the fully packed Baby’s All Right crowd moving to every song as if we had known it forever.

Boeckner was genuinely surprised and pleased to the great reaction that the songs received, a shocking thing for me considering how consistently solid all the songs sounded. The songs were heavy on the synths and keys mostly handled by Devojka (and occasionally Dan), given a rock punch through Brown’s percussion as well as Boeckner’s ever-so-familiar vocals and some welcome guitar riffs here and there. I’d guess that they played through most of what will eventually be their debut album, and if so, we’re in for a treat. So often electronic music blends together and is nice enough, but ultimately is rathe forgettable. This was far from the case with Operators, a band who caught my attention from the get go and delivered an electrifying set that made electronic-rock seem alive and well. It’s the type of music that you could play anywhere at any party, and get the people going.

Bring on that LP Operators. I can’t wait to rock out to it.