American 2000s band who are very hard to place into any genre, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah played The Button Factory in Dublin, playing their debut album, also called “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” on its 20th anniversary.
Their debut album is one of my favourite albums of all time, incredibly strange but incredibly beautiful, with lead singer Alec’s certainly very odd, but very charming, vocal style, and their very layered lyrics that seem nonsensical but when you delve in actually have incredibly deep meanings.
A very energetic live act, delivered a set to a very responsive crowd, full of loads of genuinely nice people, I got talking to many different people at the gig, including a woman from Bahrain, who I cut my setlist in half and gave half of to.
Songs like “Details of the War” and “Where They Perform Miracles” were incredibly and soul-moving live, and songs like “The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth” and “In This Home on Ice” were so upbeat and got the entire building moving. “Where They Perform Miracles” was probably my favourite song of the night, a song that I think perfectly encapsulates the concept of love.
A great live act performing their best album, and one of the best albums ever, live in full, is something not to miss, and I’m glad I didn’t miss it.
A band you have to listen to quite a few times to get past what initially sounds very grating, but become very endearing, making you feel like you’ve unearthed something people aren’t wise to yet.
Stage Setup: 7/10, I enjoyed the large graphic of the album cover, and it certainly a unique album cover, that they had behind the band, other than that a very standard setup but it does what is needed.
Band Performance: 9/10, Hard to fault the band on much, they performed incredibly but well, and Alec’s voice is, of course strange, but hauntingly beautiful nonetheless.
Support: 10/10, Brooki gave an absolute killer support slot, probably the best support hand I have ever seen, a singer with a soaring voice at times, and a rough proper grunge sounding voice at others, also the bass players string broke halfway through a song and he spontaneously retuned another string and improvised it on the other string with perfect accuracy.
Merchandise: 8/10, for a small gig, the merch selection was massive, jumpers, jackets, t shirts, records, CDs, patches, pins and more. All very reasonably priced (by concert standards anyways) and good quality stuff.
Crowd: 10/10, Sometimes a good crowd can make or break a show, but this crowd was intense and passionate, they sang to every song and gave it their all, filled with incredibly nice people and all around were good fun.
Overall: 9/10, an absolutely savage gig, by one of the most underrated bands to come out of the 2000s indie scene, playing one of the best albums I’ve ever heard and then some, amazing live and was certainly a bucket list item ticked off.
Next up: Keo 1/11/25
Jays Concert Blog 