The Drums + Surfer Blood, 9:30 Club, Washington DC

Washington is the second date on a cross-country co-headlining tour featuring the Drums and Surfer Blood. Luckily for the principals involved, they all knew each other before setting off on the five-week tour together: The Drums’s guitarist Jacob Graham played with various members of Surfer Blood before either of their current bands existed. Both bands have a sound that is deceptively simple to the casual listener, yet when you see them live, it’s obvious both take great pride in what they do and are proficient at penning and playing not only fun but anthemic songs.

The Drums, dressed like Ivy Leaguers, play first. Resplendent in a red satin jacket that you’d see on an episode of ‘Happy Days’, singer Jonathan Pierce is quickly the centre of attention from the first notes of ‘Best Friend’. He does an admirable job of mesmerising fans as he vogues and sashays across the stage, crooning songs from his band’s self-titled debut album released this summer on Moshi Moshi. If you squinted hard enough, you might have imagined it was Morrissey there on stage, strutting around sans gladioli, or possibly Eddie Argos in recent years doing his impression of the Locomotion.

Pierce’s longtime friend Graham is light as air, playing his guitar as if it were a bass, seemingly oblivious to the audience watching him. What sets the Drums apart from their contemporaries is their reverence for what made ’50s bands great: clear, unwavering, unmuddled vocals combined with smooth instrumentation played with meticulous detail. ‘Forever and Ever Amen’ begins with a lick of feedback (intentional?) rivalling that of the Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine’. Shockingly, their debut hit ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ is conspicuously absent from their set, much to the disappointment of some punters. Well, there’s always a next time.

Surfer Blood could very well be the next American ‘Everyman’ band. When they were last in DC, opening for New York City’s the Pains of Being Pure at Heart in June, they played a joyous cover of Weezer’s ‘Undone - the Sweater Song’ to a raucous reception, virtually ensuring a captive audience this Sunday night. You can just imagine this kind of music goes down well at Freshers’ Week parties - it’s unpretentious guitar pop/rock that girls and boys can admit to liking without looking like a geek or a hipster. They could lose the opening instrumental fanfare from ‘Jurassic Park’ though.

‘Swim’ and ‘Floating Vibes’ have already achieved radio airplay success in Britain, but it’s other tracks on the band’s debut album ‘Astro Coast’ like ‘Fast Jabroni’, ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Harmonix’ that prove the band have more up their sleeves than one or two hits, all widely appreciated by those in attendance. The crowd is so enamoured by these guys from West Palm Beach, Florida that they demand not one, but two encores. It should be noted that the second encore was eked out of the band after they’d already made a run for the backstage and assumed they were done for the night. Singer / songwriter J.P. Pitts admitted as he tuned his guitar up for encore #2, ‘this song is really difficult to play live’. But it didn’t matter. Those who stayed were content to ride this wave.