A Night at the Ritz

It’s been a little over a year since I first listened to Office, and to finally catch them live was excellent. As I mentioned earlier this week, they’ve been one of those bands that I’ve been following peripherally for many months and to see that they are still out there creating great music, drawing crowds, and possibly getting some notice (i.e. releasing a record on a real label), it’s just nice—kind of like The Pipettes or The Magic Numbers, and unlike The Cloud Room.

Listening to ‘The Ritz’ compared to the first track I ever heard, ‘Wound Up’ that fun, dance-rock, feeling still exists but the music is definitely a little more polished, not necessarily more mainstream, because what isn’t mainstream about the lyrics “Let’s go to the beach with a bottle of wine.” I mean who wouldn’t want to do that? That sounds awesome.

I also want to add that the fact that Office has three female (instrument playing) members is incredibly cool, and I think it’s funny that so many bands I’ve been listening to lately have a girl or girls in them. I’m not sure what that means, but as long as the music still rocks, I’m okay with it—though I’ll throw in a metal show like Tool or Van Halen every now and then just to assert my masculinity. I mean, I don’t want to strictly be seeing Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, The Pierces, The Pipettes, etc., (Wow that is a lot).

As for the actual set, for having such high expectations I definitely felt they delivered—maybe it was because I was like five feet from Alissa the bassist, and it’s tough to say anything negative when you get such incredible proximity. Though, Jessica does know how to give a guy more cow bell (this should be well documented by all the amateur photographers working for going.com or adding flickr photos to their blogs). I was standing next to three or four of these guys who just kept snapping all night, and although I understand the idea and I’m happy that there is documentation—it never ceases to be annoying.

I haven’t had the opportunity to hear the new album yet, but they did humor me with some tracks from there previous album, closing with ‘Oh My God’ and leaving the stage, and then coming back for an encore (something I rarely see at Mercury Lounge) to play ‘Wound Up’ –which really sealed the deal for me.

Overall, the general sound was there, and even though I didn’t know the words or the tunes by heart, I knew their music and I was happy to see that it hadn’t changed, especially when I had hyped up their style and performance so much to my friend.

Here are a few classics, enjoy until September 25 when the new album “drops.”

Wound Up
Oh My
The Big Bang Jump!
Ordinary Offices, Extraordinary Proposals

Official Site
Myspace