So on the one hand, I can’t stand punctuation in band names, and the main singer of Los Campesinos! was annoying as all hell, and the members of the band all go by the last name of “Campesinos!” Yuck. On the other hand I can’t really hate a band that does decent Pavement covers. So I will let the Campesinos slide. Also, for all their wry cleverness, I myself just wrote a song with the tentative title of “Summer Haze (Winter Version)” so I can’t really criticize them for such bon mots as “2007 The Year Punk Broke (My Heart).”

I didn’t know this band at all, but a friend had an extra ticket, so I was up for checking them out; it helped that I was mildly interested in seeing Girls. (I think it was dangerous for my hearing, though, going to another show just two nights after Mogwai.) Overall I thought they were decent. They reminded me a lot of the Arcade Fire though the Campesinos are a little more rooted in old-fashioned indie rock compared to the Springsteen/Bowie pop stylings of Arcade Fire.

They seemed very current, very well-aligned with their young fans who probably tweet excitedly about them during their shows. (Good lord, the band even blogged about the food at the 930.) This isn’t really my thing — I miss the days when people weren’t checking facebook during concerts — but I can see the appeal.

Other folks seemed to basically like it.

Here are a few photos via last.fm/flickr , including this one by alykat:

The photos remind me that the band had a trio of attractive women, including the super-cool looking bassist. Guess that is kinda irrelevant but it was nice to watch folks other than the singer, based on his annoying-ness, as mentioned at the beginning. A good singer, but annoying. Anyway.

Girls were ok. Honestly, the friend I was with wasn’t into them and so we left after a few songs to go drink at a cheaper establishment for 45 minutes. I got the gist of their music and thought they were fine, nothing special. I really like their one song, “Morning Light” which sounds almost exactly like Slowdive; their other songs (from what I’ve heard) are a little more, hmm, Brooklyn-sounding. They reminded me a lot of Love as Laughter — hippie-damaged indie rock. I liked them well enough but am not sure they are going to amount to much, though I think they signed to Matador.

Here’s their only really rocking song, “Morning Light”: