Deerhoof

If there was any band in the world I would be in right now, it would be Deerhoof.

It wouldn't matter what I did. Just knowing that I was on a level with these people who can astound, surprise and entertain on a generally unattainable level would be enough. More than enough.

Deerhoof are international heroes, disguised in clothes to make them seem like you and I; paving roads of happiness across acres of emotional furrow. Like all the best heroes, this band finds it significantly harder to put a foot wrong than it does to effortlessly captivate with another spasmodic burst of rhythm. A yelp. Or a squeal. A fiddling, then middling then quite frankly bewildering guitar pattern.

Patterns are indeed the patchwork on which Deerhoof lay their picnic: at times delicately weaving the joyous and the danceable and at times violently threshing together technical meanderings and perfectly formed pop melodies.

Filling a hugely receptive Scala tonight and bringing simultaneous awe and delight to every member of the audience, the San Francisco quartet work all-too-fleetingly through their near-flawless back catalogue, open tonight to digging about the crates of their earlier material nearly as often as their newer work. As each song is met with boisterous applause, an encore is delivered, replete with a cataclysmic noise-driven crescendo as singer/guitarist Satomi Matsuzaki delivers bananas to a portion of the front row. As the band leave the stage, the sum total of their merchandise (twelve t-shirts that were stuffed in drummer Greg Saunier's kick drum) is sold from the stage.

To be here tonight is to set down your allegiance to the indie mafia and, for once, the beards have chosen a band to follow that is meaningful and relevant beyond a few limited seven-inches on some fashion-obsessed London label.

To see Deerhoof is to fall in love with Deerhoof. To join Deerhoof would be better still; for now, though, I'm more than contented at the idea of continuing to watch this band develop and innovate, while that rare thing in this arena of music takes place: the band are actually enjoying it, too.