Wet and Under the Tide

I'd been looking forward to this since September when I bought my ticket.

The Glaswegian band Chvrches, a trio that straddles '70s disco and '80s new wave with some of the best-written music that ever set a booty to shaking, was playing the National.

I couldn't find anyone interested in going with me, but as it turned out, that didn't matter.

Arriving ten minutes before the opening band, I found a drummer friend on bar duty at the very chilly front bar and from him got Cazadores and conversation.

Moving inside, I found far more people already there than usual, a good sign.

Opener Wet from Brooklyn was tough to categorize because while the trio's music was fairly minimal (think the XX), lead singer Kelly had an exquisite and soulful voice she could use in almost any way she wanted.

All their songs were short and most ended abruptly, but when she was wailing, the crowd was entranced.

After their second song, she said, "This is our second show in Virginia and this one's already way more fun!"

No surprise there since they played the Norva a couple of nights ago and that's always an unpleasant crowd, no matter what the band.

Fact it, they were so interesting sounding with songs like "U Da Best" and the lead singer's note-bending voice, we didn't really have any choice but to respond.

Baby, you're the best
Figure out the rest
Maybe it's a test
Think we better quit while we're ahead

And in what felt like a hot minute, they finished. A friend walked by, stopped and said, "A seventeen-minute set, that must be a record!"

Maybe they were annoyed by the crowd.

I was ready to judge them based on the idiots in front of me when a girl looked at her phone and read what the guy next to her had just posted.

"You stole my words!" she accused him."I was going to write 'great music, great friends' but you just did!"

She paused, unsure how to handle this catastrophe. "I'll just share yours now."

Give. Me. Strength.

Fortunately, I turned to my left when I overheard a guy say he had driven down from Philly for this show.

Now that's a music fan I want to meet. He and his date were debating between driving back tonight or staying with friends in Washington. I voted for the latter.

The couple next to me jumped in, too, and, lo and behold, they were from South Africa, now living in Church Hill.

He came here for his ph.D. and she followed, obviously smitten enough to change continents for him.

Once they found out I'd visited their motherland ("We never meet people who've actually been"), we became fast friends.

Talking about wine, he told me he'd been amazed to find that the CVS in the Bottom carried the South African wine Two Oceans, although, as he put it, "That's a shit wine we'd use to mix with Coke."

I assured him there were restaurants in Richmond who carry South African wines that do not require a mixer.

Like me, they were thrilled to pieces to be seeing Chvrches, so we lined up along the sound booth as the lights went down.

By then the crowd was dense, if not sold out then very, very close to it.

The Scottish trio came out and wasted no time playing their one album's worth of music against a pulsating backdrop of lights.

They began with "We Sink" and it was like they'd switched the on button for the dance party to begin.

The only problem was that there were so many people, it was tough to move much, not that we didn't do the best we could.

Singer Lauren was a bundle of energy whether singing or dancing and framed by Martin on synths/samples and Iain on guitar and keyboard.

After she stated the obvious ("This is our first time in Richmond"), they barreled through pitch-perfect renditions of songs that ensured the dance party never wavered.

"Thanks, guys," she said as nonchalantly as if we'd held a door open for her or something. "Hands up if you're feeling a little post-Thanksgiving full tonight. You! Put that away! I wanted you all to share, but we didn't need to see that."

My post-Thanksgiving feeling was I was thankful I hadn't seen whatever she had.

I loved hearing one of my favorite songs, "Night Sky," for Martin's backing vocals in a thick Scottish burr.

Saying that this was their fourth (!) tour in 2013, Lauren thanked the crowd again for coming out, as if there could have been anything nearly as much fun going on tonight.

"Recover," the fabulous pop song that several DJs have already remixed, sent the already dance feverish crowd into overdrive, making me wish there had been about 200 fewer people in there, but dancing nonetheless.

During another of my favorites, "Tether," the crowd sang out the chorus as if one cue.

I feel incapable of seeing the end
I feel incapable of saying it's over

"This is f*cking amazing," Martin said of our mass singalong.

Even better, he finally came out from behind his knob-turning station to roar out "Under the Tide" while Lauren took a back seat.

Her voice is a big part of the band's appeal, I admit, but his thickly-accented singing and killer dance moves during the chorus made me wish he had more lead vocals. Maybe on the second album.

"We're gonna play one more song," Lauren warned us like you do a small child so we could start preparing, "and let you get on with your Friday night cause there must be lots of fun things to do. I don't know what they are because I don't live here."

Listening to them play the bouncy "The Mother We Share," I think most of the crowd was already thinking about the encore.

Given that this is a band who just put out their first album in September, this was a room full of uber-fans not ready to let go of the real thing after listening non-stop to recorded music since it first began leaking out into the ether.

We made enough noise for them to come back in short order.

"Holy f*cking shit," Martin yelled. "This is my favorite show of the year!"

Lauren pointed to a child in the front row and chastised Martin for his language, as if a Scot could refrain when excited. "In context, it's fine," she reminded him.

"By the Throat" with its swirling synths and dark lyrics was the climax of the evening, thrilling as we listened and danced to it and leaving us worn out and already missing it when it ended.

All that's golden is never real
And I won't play fair with you this time
All that's golden is never so
And I'll be thankful when you let go

When the lights came up, I blinked at my new friends, the ones with whom I'd been dancing up against all evening.

Raving about what we'd just experienced, they finished by asking for my e-mail so we could stay in touch.

Extending his arms, the ph.D. candidate and his beloved gathered me in. "South African love hug!" he said, encircling us both. Tethered to strangers and set to a stellar Scottish soundtrack.

I'm with Martin. F*cking amazing night.