I’ve been wanting to check out Buildings, a.k.a. BLDGS, for a while, so was pleased to have the chance to check them out at Haydee’s Restaurant in Mt. Pleasant — close enough to home that I could make it on a banged-up knee that has been keeping me away from shows.

Plus at Haydee’s you can sit and drink mediocre margaritas. You don’t get margaritas at the Black Cat.

I first heard about Buildings sometime several months ago, maybe in the spring, and when I listened to them online I was quite impressed. They play good instrumental rock, some of it pretty catchy, and it’s more original than you’d think. Based on their recordings (what I’ve heard of them, anyway) I think they are one of the most interesting bands around DC right now — accessible enough to keep it in the realm of pop music rather than experimental music, but experimental enough to make it exciting.

Anyway never having seen them, I had the impression they were gonna be the opening band at Haydee’s, on a bill with a band called Make a Rising, and was a little disconcerted when the first band started out with chanting. I was all like, this has to be the other band, right? but wasn’t sure for a while. Make a Rising were decent, though. They sounded to me like a cross between Deerhoof and Tortoise (do tortoises have hoofs?). They wore costumes (someone at my table asked, “what’s that Donnie Darko guy playing?”) and sounded pretty good, occasionally incorporating some unusual instruments into the mix.

Haydee’s was a strange venue to see a rock show and it was kind of weird to be sitting at a table a ways back from the band, drinking and eating tortilla chips during a psychedelic rock performance. I think both bands would have been more interesting in a different venue.

By the time Buildings went on it was getting late and I was getting deeper into the margaritas, but they did a good job of living up to my fairly high expectations. They played in front of a goofy video projection that reminded me of watching one of those video-game tv channels, or an episode of Liquid Television. You can see it in this bad cell phone snap:

Hope these guys achieve some success, I’ll try to spread the word and support them when I can. The friends I took to Haydee’s seemed to enjoy the show. I was wondering if they would have merch for sale — their new EP is on sale via iTunes but I never buy anything from iTunes normally. Maybe I’ll have to break down. Anyway go check them out — here is their myspace.