Los Campesinos!: Not bad lookin' and allegedly doomed.
On Friday night, Los Campesinos! came all the way from Cardiff, Wales to Bloomington to deliver a shipment of pure awesome. One can only wonder how they managed to get it through customs.
If you’re in Bloomington, over 21, healthy enough to leave the house, and still missed it (and, judging by the audience of 50-75 people, you probably did), then you should really kick yourself. Because how often do top-flight indie pop bands cross oceans to play here (at $10-12 a ticket no less)? But, hopefully, this should give you a bit of an idea of what it was like.
I missed the opening by locals The Delicious, as I was called away by important beer-related duties (sorry) — but I did manage to put together a set list for Los Campesinos!’s performance below. Note that the titles of the new songs might be a bit off due to English-to-American translation errors.
Now, to try to recreate the show, take a good look at the photos in this post, then click on the successive YouTube links in the set list. Turn your computer’s speaker volume up to maximum, stand up, and dance around. Maybe get some friends to join you. As you move on to the next song, imagine a charmingly awkward fella with a Southwest English/light Welsh accent bantering about having a dry falafel for dinner, stocking up on vinyl 7″ singles for their Record Box project at Landlocked, and the pressure of preceding Arctic Monkeys at Lollapalooza (”Which means a lot more in our country than it does in yours.”). This simulation could be facilitated by picking up their excellent 2008 albums Hold On Now, Youngster… and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed.
It’s not a great approximation, but it should encourage you to check ‘em out the next time they come through here — which, hopefully, Friday’s enthusiastic response will encourage them to do (dry falafels notwithstanding).
Set List:
3. Ways To Make It Through The Wall
5. Miserabilia
6. You Fell Asleep (new song)
9. IIB (new song)
10. …And We Exhale And Roll Our Eyes In Unison
11. We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives
12. Box Elder (Pavement cover)
14. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
15. Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks
Encore:
Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats
Another group shot. I love how lead singer Gareth Campesinos! looks like he's serenading a higher power... or possibly the ceiling fan.
Don't make Gareth angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry...
Keyboardist and backup singer Aleks Campesinos!, who'll sadly be leaving the band soon to go back to school. Bah! Higher education, who needs it? 
Neil Campesinos! (left) and Tom Campesinos! (right) on guitar and other guitar, respectively.
Neil and Tom again, and Harriet Campesinos! on violin.
Aleks and Gareth singing in their own individual styles.
Neil and Gareth out in the audience. Sadly, this was the best shot I could manage (that Gareth was running around all over the place).
