Thursday's Earful: Cold War Kids @ Terminal 5

By: David Schultz
Photos: Jason Fuiman

At the close of the Cold War Kids’ New York City set this past Friday night, lead singer Nathan Willett sat down at his keyboard and began to pound out the opening chords of “We Used To Vacation.” As has been their custom for years, guitarist Jonnie Russell wails away on a loose cymbal perched atop a speaker cabinet in between shakes of a maraca until the fervor of the song sends the cymbal crashing to the ground. In the lounges and clubs that the Kids have long outgrown, the tale of regret and prayer for redemption made for a wonderfully intimate experience. At a sold-out Terminal 5, with nearly 3000 people singing along, the effect was simply overwhelming.

Willett. Russell, bassist Matt Maust and drummer Matt Aveiro may not be entirely house trained once the house lights dim but they no longer prowl the stage like untamed feral beasts. (Not that Aveiro ever did from behind his drum kit). While this may be a symptom of them having more room on the bigger stages, it’s also illustrative of their maturity. Making fine use of the space, the larger set allows them to incorporate elements of Maust’s artwork, a significant component of their image, with video screens showing images derivative of the bassist’s photography. They also manage to work in some new sounds, most notably the Beck sounding fuzzy organ tones on “Audience,” one of the fine tracks off Behave Yourself, their recently released EP.

The warehouse atmosphere of Terminal 5 – which in the biggest clusterfuck in the history of lists ranked #3 on Pollstar’s ranking of the 100 greatest venues – provided a fine milieu for Maust’s resounding bass lines and Russell’s precise guitar riffs. Cold War Kids can sound like the coolest, slightly demented, cabaret band with many of the songs moving untraditionally forward on Maust’s bass, permitting Russell to insert concise hit-and-run solos, like on “Something Is Not Right With Me.” They can also hit U2-like grandeur with songs like “Welcome To The Occupation” and the soaring highs of “Dreams Old Men Dream” match the wizened images of the song.

Fully rounded bass and surgically incisive guitar licks notwithstanding, the increasingly confident lead vocals of Willett, who sings his unguarded, literate lyrics with an urgency and passion matched by few, may be the most compelling aspect of the band. An idiosyncratic group, their covers are usually rare and often quite diverse, spanning from remarkably adept Sam Cooke adaptations to slight appropriations of Tom Waits. With the help of an impromptu horn section made up of Elvis Perkins In Dearland’s Nick Kinsey and Wyndham Boylan-Garnett (at least that’s who it seemed to be), they offered up a powerful version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Long As I Can See The Light” that saw Willett wring every bit of the song’s yearning. Of course, as long as there were guests on stage capable of making some noise, they careened into a raucous version of “St. John,” the prison gang chant that typically brings down the house.