Bravo!: Local Natives show their power at 400 Bar

They lost their power at one point and only offered up 45 minutes of material, but Local Natives still lived up to their hype at the 400 Bar on Monday night. Faced with a packed, sweaty crowd that had gobbled up all the tickets two months earlier, singer/guitarist/keyboardist Kelcey Ayer cheerily said, "This is our first time in town. We didn't expect all of you here." Personally, I didn't expect the crowd to respond so rabidly to the songs off the Orange County quintet's one and only album, "Gorilla Manor." Sure, the sweet, merry-go-round-vibed single "Airplanes" not surprisingly induced a big singalong, but so did several other tunes. Among the highlights was the snarling Talking Heads cover, "Warning Sign," early in the show -- a song that perfectly embodies the Natives' high-reaching, David Byrne-ian vocal harmonies and jittery, punchy rhythms (punched up by extra percussion work from the other members). Best of all was the one-two punch of "Who Knows, Who Cares" before the encore, followed by the more psychedelic, tribal, manic "Sun Hands" for a truly rousing finale. Click here for a photo gallery from the show.