Deerhunter are a pretty well adored band of the kind of geeky, left-field music, elitist crowd who write for Pitchfork. I don’t write for Pitchfork, but I tick the rest of the boxes and I think they’re pretty A-Ok. So, when I found out that they were playing Whelan’s on the very night that I just happened to be there, I was pretty stoked.

Of course, when it comes to live performances, there are always going to be certain expectations in relation to whatever band is playing: If I go to a Metallica gig I expect some geriatrics grasping for their youth, Pussycat Dolls a strip show, The Killers a pack of smug Mormon shits, etc...

So what did I expect for Deerhunter, who play a kind of 60’s revivalist psychedelic surf-rock with a nice splash of holy-fuck awesome (you know, the kind of music which people use a lot of stupid words to describe)? In not so many words, I was not expecting them to smash the place up or vomit on the audience or anything.

The most visually striking thing about Deerhunter is probably the fact that their front-man Bradford Cox is a 6 foot 4 beanpole - apparently he has the same weird genetic thing that Joey Ramone had which makes people look like gangly puppet men. Besides that, they came out and played a cracking set, throwing in all their best tunes from their most recent album, Microcastle. The pacing and ordering of the songs lent to the momentum of the gig, the sound was fantastic and, more importantly, they played loud. So, as far as the band goes on the night, I am giving them a big fat thumbs up. Now for the audience

What the fuck is wrong with you people? You’ve just paid around €15 to go to a gig on a Sunday night. Presumably, you know and, chances are, you might even like the band that you have paid to see on a Sunday evening. Maybe, if all goes well, when you hear one of their songs that you recognise you might, maybe, show some sort of recognition and perhaps you might do something along the lines of singing along or moving your limbs in some kind of rhythmic fashion. Ideally you could go batshit crazy, but at the very least you should shake a leg.

After about four songs even Gigantor Cox noticed that he was simply being stared at by slack-jawed dullards. I’ve seen that homeless rapper on Grafton Street get a better audience reception. By this stage I was trying to convince the barman to start a mosh-pit with me. It all came to a lovely head when some quick witted young gent decided to heckle the band. This provided a brief moment of excitement as someone then decided to throw a pint at this loudmouth boob. Unfortunately, all pints were being served in plastic cups. Nonetheless, we all had a good laugh at someone being hit on the head with something.

It’s hard to imagine why the crowd was such a pack of dry shites. Maybe they thought they had bought tickets for a stage performance of The Deerhunter, maybe each and every one of them was a bit shy, or more probably, every one of them is part of that 'too cool to care so I’ll just nod my head' Dublin indie crowd. I hope you all get blood clots in your Converse-covered feet from the amount of standing around looking hip that you do.

Highlight of The Night: The band playing an encore in spite of the audience (yes, you read that right)

- Stephen Tuohy