by Daniel Berman
Staff Writer

What does it take to get people to dance, clap and scream in this city anymore?

When Tokyo Police Club headlined a show featuring White Rabbits and The Virgins at Seattle’s Neumos, an entertainment venue on the corner Pike Street and Broadway Avenue, you would think that three exciting new Indie Rock bands would have the crowd moving, yet most of the swaying seemed to be happening near the bar.

Any time a bunch of bands are performing an all-ages show, the group that shows up tends to be a mix of very young teenagers and cultured twenty-something – missing in the balance are those that can appreciate unique music and people my age. Neumos management installed a metal security barrier vertically down the center of the venue. One side of the establishment was for the under-21 set and the other for those who could legally enjoy the vigor of alcohol.

The effect was certainly a buzz killer, with the all-ages crowd doing their best “we couldn’t care less” impression and the adults looking on with curious interest at the people who could be their little brother’s age.

The show began with a New York City quarter. The Virgins, started off the night with an hour-long set of suave synthesizer rock that sounds like a mix of the Arctic Monkeys and The Clash. These guys play better live, mostly because their vocals have improved since the release of their latest album. Songs like their hit “Rich Girl” become hypnotic with a pounding baseline and intense guitar riff. One would think that this kind of progressive rock would get the crowds pumped, but it seemed that the crowd was waiting for Tokyo Police Club to take the stage.

As the night progressed, an older crowd summoned itself to make an appearance for White Rabbits, a six-piece also out of NYC. The six-piece ensemble boasts two drummers, a pianist and two bassists. Their sound is memorable, to say the least. From their opening song “Kid On My Shoulders” to their closer “The Plot,” White Rabbits played a dramatic set that had people moving.

The songs reclaim classic rock territory. Despite a cadre of tech difficulties that delayed their anticipated start time by twenty minutes, White Rabbits banged away at drums, screamed loudly and generally threw themselves about the stage - it all made for an impressive display of showmanship.

Sometimes it is obvious when the headliners have brought most of the bodies to a show, and Tokyo Police Club certainly found that out when as 11:30 p.m. rolled around, Neumos, well-known for its packing of people in for rock shows, managed to cram the greater half of 40 or so attendees into the all-ages half of the venue.

Tokyo Police Club, who hails from Ontario, Canada, played a rapid-paced set filled with songs about a dystopia (anti-utopia) of the future.

The crowd finally was impressed.

As the band performed a mixture of new and old songs, the crowd began to clap, sing along and dance to the music. On the anthemic piece “Citizens of Tomorrow,” lead singer David Monks rhythmically chanted “for the boys and the girls who are slaves building spaceships at night, in the fluorescent light, that’s 2009.” Epic pieces like these, which explored deep issues like supercomputers with the power to control people, blended seamlessly into softer material like the serene “La Ferrassie.”

An ambiguous crowd that couldn’t decide whether or not it liked out-of-town Indie rockers ultimately found itself enjoying a lively threesome of bands with a unique spin on Progressive Rock. The music that I heard that night ran the gamut of obnoxious to beautiful, but all of it got my foot tapping. And when you pay $12 to see a lineup of bands on a Wednesday night in Seattle, that’s all you can really hope for right?