racing to the red light

I remember first hearing Pumped Up Kicks on the radio and thinking it was OK – it had a little bit of a “trendy” sound to me, but it grew on me especially after I listened carefully to the lyrics.

Then just before the album, Torches, was released, I heard an interview with Mark Foster on NPR and I thought maybe I’ll have to buy the album and check it out. I remember he described Pumped Up Kicks as “this dark song with a really light and airy melody” – I thought that was kind of cool. He went on to talk about how his parents encouraged him to move to “either New York or Los Angeles” to pursue a career in music. How good of them, and thank God because they produced one hell of an album.

We got to see them live over the summer, and I have to say I was completely blown away by their live performance. Their album is so produced-sounding that I doubted they would be able to put on a great show. Wrong!  Totally wrong – it in fact proved to be one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen, and believe me when I say that I’ve seen a few.

Here are several of my favorites.

Helena Beats (weird post-apocalyptic Mad Max take):

Pumped Up Kicks (the self-indulgent “aren’t we a cool band” video for their most famous song):

Call It What You Want (fun slightly bizarre artsy video):

Miss You (music only):