“Well, this is pretty awesome, right?” frontman Nate Ruess asked a sold-out audience at Irving Plaza last Wednesday night. After their show had been postponed by more than a week thanks to Hurricane Sandy, the New York City-based band fun. was finally able to perform.
Although the show coincided with the oncoming nor’easter, the venue was packed — even for Miniature Tigers the opening band based out of Brooklyn. Miniature Tigers were light and upbeat, with synthesized vocals similar to the band of Montreal but with lyrics more like Foster the People.
Fun. band member Andrew Dost played the keyboard for one of the opening songs. Miniature Tigers’ lead singer Charlie Brand provided the highlight of their set when he climbed off the stage to sing directly to a fan, the microphone in one of his hands and her hand in the other.
Opening with “Carry On,” fun. wasted no time jumping right into their set, and the band never hit a lull. Going immediately into “One Foot,” Ruess jumped about the stage fist pumping and motioning for the audience to sing along.
While the band is best known for hits “We Are Young” and “Some Nights,” the crowd sang along with every song, jumping up and down with Ruess and reverberating his contagious energy. Ruess could not seem to hold still, while guitarist Jack Antonoff maintained a constant smile throughout the whole show. All three band members were clearly still enjoying the high of their recent rocket to success.
Fun. recently launched their Campus Consciousness Tour in conjunction with their human rights project The Ally Coalition, which aims to raise awareness and support for the LGBTQ community. The show was littered with miniature public service announcements mixed in with their lyrics — the most comical example came when Ruess sang “I don’t smoke cigarettes. I just don’t,” rather than the recorded line: “Not quite enough cigarettes to calm me down.”
Among the other great original songs played, including “All The Pretty Girls” and “Why Am I The One,” the band not only did an amazingly creative and rousing cover of The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” but, much to the audience’s delight, also played the intro to “I’ll Be There for You” by The Rembrandts, also known as the “Friends” theme song.
When “We Are Young” began about two-thirds of the way through the evening, the whole crowd was singing its heart out, and the energy in the room became intensely palpable. The energy continued until the band brought the evening to an epic conclusion with, of course, “Some Nights.” The audience undoubtedly felt that braving the storm was well worth it.
A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Nov. 13 print edition. Alex Pastron is a contributing writer. Email her at [email protected].