Teenage Girls Like the Teenagers, @ the Paradise 5.08

I have reservations about absolutely ripping the Teenagers because my roommate digs them. His opinion is no less valid than mine and he’s just starting to get into mid-stream “independent” music so to jade him at this early stage of development seems wrong. But, he’s a big boy and he can handle it…

…I’ll begin with the positive - they can pronounce Team Robespierre’s name properly.

Beyond that, the Teenagers irk me. Fair or not, their combination of image and music seems contrived, manipulative, and unnatural. Every on stage move and idea seems preconceived. Lead singer Quentin Delafon moves like a stiff George Michael (no, not that kind of stiff) circa 1983 - the Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go era. The only members who seem like they’re actually on stage to play music are the two non-members of the band (read: the girls).

The same goes for their music. It’s almost as if they’ve decided on picking the riffs that play to the lowest common denominator and play up the fact their French and indie to attract their main segment of teenage girl fans. And just to be sure they’ve got a strangle hold on those pubescent females with cash to spend on merch, they invite them on stage, which will surely form an indelible mark on their maturing psyche.

The Teenagers are not natural, so naturally, I don’t like them.

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Team Robespierre could not be more different. They’re a band formed of guys who grew up on bands like Goldfinger, who grew on bands like the Minutemen and Minor Threat, who grew up on bands like the Ramones, the Clash, and the Talking Heads. The resulting sound is poppy punk combined with synthesizer and keyboard. Not completely engaging sonically, but it does lend itself for a standout live performance.

Even for the miniscule crowd that showed up they went all out. Spinning, jumping and falling over each other with goofy, childlike enthusiasm.

The only real negative of the performance was that Paradise had Team Robespierre’s vocals turned way down. So even though the band was manically shouting into the microphones not much sound was coming out. The vocals drive a lot of their songs so it took a bit of punch from the songs, but the band was able to make up for most of it by the sheer force of will which they put behind a performance.

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