Show Review: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Royal Oak Music Theatre

We arrived at the ROMT around 8pm. The show was sold out and there were a few people looking for extra tickets hanging outside the theatre. There was a short line but it moved quickly. I had never been to the ROMT before but the setup was not dissimilar from other theatres I’d been to. We got our tickets, got the tickets scanned, walked into the receiving room and took a peek at the merch table, then continued straight back to the bar.

There was already a decent crowd forming by the front of the stage but the rear of the room was very navigable and there was no line for the bar. Drinks in hand we made our way down to the stage without much bumping or spilling. The majority of the the audience was in their 20s-30s but at one point I did observe a cute couple in their 60s taking out their ear plugs and whispering to one another. We stopped next to a guy in a cowboy hat and I noticed the girl in front of me had on moccasins. As we were waiting for the show to begin Rodriguez’s Sugar Man came on over the speakers and there was an enthusiastic cheer.

A few minutes later CYHSY hit the stage. They opened with Satan said Dance and the crowd sang along shouting “SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!” As much as I tried to make out the lyrics in the following songs to look up later “SATAN” was probably the only word I clearly made out for the rest of the set. I’m not sure if it was the style of the singer or if the vocal mic was low, or a combination of both... but my hearing is also not great so it could be just me.

This was my first exposure to CYHSY so I attempted to write down random words with the intention of looking up the song names later so my review would be more informative but my notes go something like this:


1. Satan
2. ?
3. (Everyone starts clapping along)
4. i know, i know (is this love?)...
5. ahhhhhhhhhhhh oooooooooooh...

6. 

CYHSY played 8 or 9 songs/about an hour long set. I eventually stopped trying to make out what songs were being played and bobbed my head along as well enjoying the melodies. The beats were hard hitting and even as we made our way back through the crowd and I could still feel the pounding in my chest from 30 ft away.


Photos by Gomar2