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The Unicorns
At the First Unitarian Church
Filter Grade: 63%
by Megan Timmerman | 01.01.2007

There’s nothing better than being psyched about a new band (with the notable exception of getting nude with a psyched band). I'd heard the buzz: "The Unicorns are Canadian." ""The Unicorns are awesome." "The Unicorns can fly." Naturally, that old spark of curiosity was ignited, and I was left with a few choices. Do I stay in and spend another night watching brain-numbing reality TV shows or do I go out and freeze my ass off for the sake of music? So although winter is one of my least favorite things, I decided to shed my hermit shroud for a few hours and venture out into the bitter, cold night to see what I had been missing...

After walking the 20 blocks to the Church I arrived just in time to stand around with the other 350 people waiting to see the bands. It was close... had I showed up ten minutes earlier, it might have been 340 people. One of the endearing-yet-awkward qualities of the Church is that it has that high school auditorium feel to it... you know, that whole waiting-around-for-the-boy-you-have-a-crush-on-to-ask-you-to-dance thing. After a half hour of staring at all of the underage, perfectly dressed kids in the audience, the opening band took the stage. The five members of NYC’s the Occasion took the stage looking bohemian cool in their tight T-shirts and flared jeans, with that slightly weary look in their eyes that tells you they’ve been sleeping on peoples' couches for the past six months. The Occasion’s vibe and live performance share a lot with thier former tourmates, Interpol. Although they don’t jump around or talk a lot between songs, they emote with their instruments. The drone of the guitar, the thumping of the bass, and the intensity of the drums, samples, and keyboards, along with the singer's passionate vocals, gets their message across. They've got that weathered NYC attitude and they exhibit it with their version of twang-tinged melancholy rock. To get to the point, they are a comfluence of everything the Unicorns are not: seasoned musicians, passionate, and pretty damn good.

About 15 minutes after the end of the Occasion’s underappreciated set (the only moment where the kids' didn’t wear their eyes glazed over was when the singer started a mosh pit at the end of their set), the three awkward looking members of the Unicorns approached the stage. Clad in neon pink suits and sporting bad haircuts, the Unicorn crew began their set by asking the crowd to practice safe sex if they were feeling “randy,” thanking Clear Channel for making their show possible, and mumbling something about one of their band members' balls just dropping (what!?). Their first mistake was being too ironic in every way. "Yeah, we wear bright pink suits and we are total losers but that’s what makes us cool. We even think we’re cool enough to cover a Kylie Minogue song." Sorry guys, "Can’t Get You Out Of My Head" is a great song, but only when the locomotive booty-master is stripping to it. Everything about the unicorn's amateurish, second hand lo-fi pop made me want to kill myself (if I had a scanner, I'd show you the scars). The catch to all of this, of course, is that everyone else was totally buying it. Irony is a tricky thing in music. Those bands that use it well, like the Liars, do so intelligently and so over-the-top that it actually makes sense. The Unicorns, on the other hand, use it as a crutch. And what good is a mythical animal if it needs a crutch to get around anyway? Kinda takes the magic away, don't it?