Clap Your Hands Say Yeah brought new and old material to an enthusiastic crowd at Riot Room last night

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah with Mat Shoare
The Riot Room, Kansas City
Sunday, July 27, 2014

In the mid-aughts, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was the indie-rock band that everyone was talking about. The Brooklyn quintet’s 2005 self-titled debut was an explosive success, but when subsequent releases failed to inspire the same love in critics and disappointed fans, CYHSY seemed to slowly unravel. The band took a hiatus in 2009, and eventually, it came down to just lead singer and songwriter Alec Ounsworth and drummer Sean Greenhalgh.

Which brings us to last night’s show at Riot Room. Ounsworth has rebuilt the band for this summer tour – in support of CYHSY’s fourth album, Only Run, released last month – as a quartet (though, oddly, Greenhalgh was not present last night).

Before the new iteration of CYHSY came on stage, though, Ounsworth performed a brief solo set, featuring music from his various solo projects and one or two CYHSY tunes. Ounsworth stuck with the electric guitar throughout this set, layering songs with a heady reverb, giving things a sort of electrified folk music feeling. It worked nicely, and provided a pleasant palette cleanser before his full rock band came out.

Later, when Ounsworth was joined by the rest of his band, he seemed in tune to what the audience was hoping to hear. The hour-plus set was heavy on crowd-pleasing hits from the debut album, along with a generous amount of cuts from Only Run. To start things off, Ounsworth fired up the drum machine and drifted into the brand-new song “Blameless.” At first, this drowsy track wasn’t particularly engaging, but after a few short minutes of drum loops and wistful synth lines, the band got the crowd bopping up and down with a rendition of the lush and careening “In This Home on Ice.”

That was the trend throughout the show: CYHSY would play one of its new songs, and the crowd would keep pretty mellow; then there would be a classic from the 2005 album, and the room would shake with dancers. At times, even the band itself seemed more into its older material.

“Is This Love” in particular got the venue moving, with its frantically strummed guitars and Ounsworth’s modulating vocal lines building into an anthemic crescendo. This was followed up with a rowdy version of “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth.” With its Isaac Brock-style note bends and bouncy bass lines, the old hit single pushed the crowd’s momentum to a chaotic pulse.

The next highlight should have been “Over and Over Again,” but the band fumbled at the beginning of the song, and after that couldn’t seem to keep on time throughout the rest of it. The group quickly regained composure and performed two of its title tracks: The jangly garage rock of “Some Loud Thunder” (from the 2007 album), followed by the frantic digital stylings of “Only Run.” At times, it seemed Ounsworth and crew struggled to keep the energy high through some of the new material, but the Riot Room audience was a forgiving one. As the band closed out the night with the rollicking and fuzzy “Heavy Metal,” the ecstatic audience cheered on the return of this new incarnation of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. 

Leftovers: Wearing an outfit that color matched with his instrument exceptionally well, local singer-songwriter Mat Shoare opened the evening. His style ranged from minimalist pop to beachy blues-tinged numbers – a nice way to start the night. Shoare can write a catchy tune; it’d be cool to hear his songs fleshed out with the support of a backing band.

Setlist:
Blameless
In This Home on Ice
Satan Said Dance
Beyond Illusion
Coming Down
Is This Love?
The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
Impossible Request
Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)
Some Loud Thunder
Only Run
Ketamine and Ecstacy
Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood
As Always
Heavy Metal