HEAR IT: Golden Filter Remix | Yeasayer

GET IT: Hot N Fun by NERD [Yeasayer Remix]

Happy happy Vampire Weekend. While other Coachella acts took the dark and/or introspective routes, these East Coasters kept it light with bouncy tunes and playful lyrics. Even the song “One (Blake’s Got a New Face),” where frontman Ezra Koenig does his fair share of shrieking, sounded soothing compared to the audio assault of LCD Soundsystem which was playing on the next stage over. The jury’s still out on Vampire Weekend’s live act: on one hand, the band is perfectly pleasant, doling out “Horchata” and the Dick Dale-inspired “Cousins” with sure hands, but one can’t help thinking that a little more heft and edge would do this outfit good.

New York’s Yeasayer squeezed in a Friday afternoon Coachella appearance amidst a North American tour that puts them in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Salt Lake City within the next week. They’re on the road in support of their sophomore album, “Odd Blood,” and weren’t shy about playing the new material: the set included “One,” “Rome,” and a rousing “Ambling Alp” that whipped the crowd into sing-along mode at the chorus. Singer Chris Keating led the band with his usual herky jerky moves and credit goes to the multi-instrumentalists for focusing on their sound rather than fashion — what other hipster-magnet band would dare to take the stage with a member sporting a low-slung wife beater?

She & Him aren’t breaking any new ground but they are quite good at setting the right mood for their throwback sound. Zooey Deschanel’s vocals are whispy and pleasant and M. Ward’s guitar skills are a cut above the band’s cutesy fare but you’ll only get to know this when he gets to cut loose like he did on “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here.” The duo and their backup band played a good deal off their latest effort, “She & Him: Volume Two,” with a performance that stayed pretty close to the record’s sound.

James Murphy is not losing his edge, despite what he says in his song. The white-clad frontman of the influential electro-dance band threw down the gauntlet for other main stage acts to follow with a mix of the familiar (“Us Vs. Them,” “Losing My Edge”) and unfamiliar (“Pow Pow,” “Drunk Girls) that turned the polo field into a gigantic rave by set’s end. Murphy had the balls to play back-to-back songs off of LCD’s upcoming album, “This Is Happening,” and even left his most popular tune, “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” off the playlist. He gave shout-outs to Gil Scott-Heron and Them Crooked Vultures and converted the uninitiated into fans with a blistering, nine minute-plus rendition of “Yeah.” Hells yeah!

YEASAYER @ COACHELLA
We are counting down to the best weekend of the year! There are 141 artists playing the event. 56 of which we are SUPER EXCITED to see and we will bring you ONE of them every single day leading up to the event. In the time being head over to COACHELLA.COM and grab your tickets. We know they are expensive but fuck it… it’s been a rough year and WE DESERVE ONE GREAT WEEKEND OF GREAT MUSIC AND GREAT PARTYING… DONTCHA THINK?

We’ve already given Yeasayer’s record Odd Blood a lot of praise, and now we want to share a remix of one of the most pop-sounding tracks on the album, “One”, which has now been turned into a mighty dance floor remix. Get the remix here.

The Brookly quartet’s song sounds like they could be the lost outtakes from Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” album, or B-sides for Chicago’s “Live at Carnegie Hall”. Catch them tonight at the Natural History Museum (early arrival strongly suggested)!