It's mainly unfounded speculation, but I think the best way to describe White Rabbits' show at the High Noon Saloon Tuesday night is growing pains. If snobs like Vampire Weekend and their Ivy League brethren would have grown up in Brooklyn and opted to attend a liberal arts school, they would have followed a path very similar to that of White Rabbits. However, the fact that White Rabbits don't have closets full of cardigans or a collection of sailboats made following the surprise success of their 2007 debut, Fort Nightly, much more of a challenge. Without a sense of entitlement, they seem genuinely unsure about what we want from them.
Fort Nightly was a raucous barnburner, robust with instantly infectious hooks and youthful exuberance, if somewhat haphazardly collected. This year's highly anticipated sophomore release, It's Frightening, is a much more reserved affair, successful enough in its songwriting, but all too often at the cost of the contagiously danceable grooves.
For the most part, when performed live, these songs play out as a group buying into the woeful misfortunes of a confusing maturation process way more than any onlookers want to let themselves believe. Maybe it's just that It's Frightening hasn't had time to sink in yet, but the overwhelming reputation of a White Rabbits show, and what is undoubtedly the expectation of most concertgoers, is far too concentrated on carefree dancing to benefit from hearing lead singer/pianist Stephen Patterson pander about the Company He Keeps.""
It seemed pretty obvious which side of White Rabbits the crowd was there to see. While the front few rows maintained a steady excitement through the show, the rest of the audience slowly dissipated. The sound swelled into an unmistakably uninterested buzz until the group finally broke into Fort Nightly opener ""Kid on My Shoulders."" For the first time all night they turned their inhibitions aside and let their dual-drummer assault blow through the bar. The room was finally abuzz, only to be led into another introspective meandering fronted by an acoustic guitar. Of course they played their new single, ""Percussion Gun,"" and the song that brought them most of their success, ""The Plot,"" but those rounded off what were the only three truly memorable moments of the entire show.
As far as I'm concerned, encores are on the brink of becoming a taboo. Nowadays bands either think encores are expected of them and consequently build their shows around them, or they relish their time on stage too much to be able to drag themselves back on for more. In this case, White Rabbits belonged to the former, not even waiting long enough for the crowd to build a steady slow clap before blowing through another swelling acoustic jam.
To be fair, the lackluster performance was more an indictment of their new record and how it translates to a live setting than it was an indictment of the band. To their credit, they played with impressive enthusiasm, breathing conviction into the room even though Patterson kept his jacket on the entire show. And it is for this reason why I believe this one concert is no reason to give up hope on White Rabbits. Five years from now we'll probably view this as a minor hiccup in the history of a genuinely fun and energetic band. Whether they continue to mature and write more insightful songs or regress to their earlier days of ordered exuberance, they show enough promise to suggest inevitable success either way. They just need to decide which of the two bands they want to be.
