Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Liquid Room @ Edinburgh

The worst part about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's mediocre gig wasn't that it was mediocre, but just that now I've got to resist making some lame joke that rhymes "Yeah" with "Meh" or "Bleh". For a band that offered one of the most exciting indie debuts of 2005, a record of yowling, fleet-footed indie-dance, CYHSY's performance was one of astounding averageness. There was an ambivalence in singer Alec Ounsworth's eyes, a listlessness to nearly the whole band. For some in the crowd, it was enough to hear loud guitars and beating drums. But in that soup of boiled down sound, I was more excited by the memory of the songs than by the thing in front of me. Perhaps they were tired of touring to hipsters, of impressing the easily impressed. But the fact remains: I did not clap my hands. I did not say yeah. [Sean Michaels]