Le Loup Shows Audience the State of the Union

Union Hall is a perfect match for Le Loup. The D.C.-based band is a seven-piece ensemble, and you often get the feeling that its music is just barely contained within its confines—a three-minute song on its excellent debut album The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, or, in this case, a little room in the basement of a neighborhood bar. Sure, Le Loup could rise to the challenge of a larger venue. It succeeded admirably during the CMJ showcase in which it participated this year, at Bowery Ballroom—but the tiny stage at Union Hall brought the band’s sense of drama into even greater relief on March 24.

That sense of drama is exactly what makes seeing Le Loup live such a delight. The band’s frontman, Sam Simkoff, demands the audience’s attention with his physical presence. He’s a slight, wiry, bespectacled guy, the kind you expect to be soft-spoken—which is precisely why it’s so surprising to see him seized with the manic energy he exhibits on stage. During at least half of the songs at the Union Hall show, Simkoff convulsed against the microphone, eyes shut tight.

The band interspersed songs from Throne with newer material, which was a little more shoegazey and a little less delicate than the banjo-driven songs on Throne. For those who have followed Le Loup’s short career so far, the show was encouraging. Since the album’s sound is so distinctive (layers of guitar, sweeping crescendo, and that damn banjo), the band might have been vulnerable to being pigeonholed. It’s heartening, then, to see it breaking out of that mold so soon.

It could be a reflection of Simkoff’s own jumpy brilliance—his inability to stay in any one place, or with any one sound, for too long. And maybe that’s also what made Union Hall such an entertaining location to see Le Loup play—Simkoff and co. were able to lend the same responsiveness to the audience. Late in the set, after a few low-key songs, a drunk fangirl in the audience implored Simkoff to play a song she could dance to. He blinked through his glasses. “Okay,” he said, and dove in.