The Radio Dept. Tickets

Despite the previous, lackluster reviews posted about this band live, they deserve an accurate, recent review. The show was fantastic. The melodic and harmonic structures of their songs were all there, and they DID come on for an encore. It's true they used a laptop as a drum machine, but it didn't subtract any life from the show. Highly recommended, and for $10, had a fantastic evening. Enjoy!

No Drummer, no energy. These guys have some great music on CD, but goodness no, there live show is awful.

the first band came on according to schedule, and played a decently long set. they weren't that friendly with the audience, but the music was okay. they weren't who i came to see though. the radio dept. took a very long time setting up and ended up going on almost a half and hour after the posted time. this is understandable though, and all things were checked to ensure a good show experience. they played their popular songs first and also took requests from the audience. it was great to see them live! my only complaint is that they went on late and finished quickly. they didn't even come back for an encore. i don't know their situation, but for a room full of fans there to see them who had already been standing close to three hours it would've been nice to see them for more than 40 min. or at least done one encore. i don't know if i'd see them again, but i'm still glad i did. they're a long standing band and make awesome music.

Possibly the worst show I've seen at the Bowery Ballroom. I'm a huge fan of Radio Dept. but they got a raw deal. Maybe it's just that they play intimate music that doesn't translate to the live setting, but they had a horrible experience at Bowery, and I sympathize. The sound engineer should have been shot. The mixing was so bad, it was hard to hear what was going on. The lead guitarist's instrument was out of tune for several songs. The band obviously couldn't hear themselves because at some point during every song they were gesturing to their instruments and giving instructions to the on stage engineers. Ended up being a very disappointing experience. I love this band, but this show was just painful to sit through.

I had a feeling this show could go either way. It could be a great live experience or a lack luster night, but I wasn't prepared for how lack luster Radio Dept was live that night. With a three piece band that was 10% musicianship and 90% play the tracks off the laptop. All the interesting bits where prerecorded yet the band still flopped some chords and the overall mix was made it hard to hear the lead singers shy and un-projecting voice. It was a shame that such a great album had to be represented with such a lame live show. The crowd tried to get into it but it seemed that they couldn't get past how much energy had drained from the conversion. Bottom line, learn to play the songs proper and get yourself a drummer for god sakes. Though not a fan of the opening band they at least knew how to fill a room with sound even if they didn't know how to write past a single chord and adorable girl voices.

no drummer, no presence, not even chilled. just boring