Playing a sideshow to Big Day Out, the New York electronic music duo Ratatat, who consists of Evan Mast and Mike Stroud, played an amazing set at Manning Bar. I missed out on seeing them at Big Day Out so their Manning Bar show was a must. To be honest, I never heard of them until they were announced as part of the BDO line up but upon recommendation from friends I gave them a go and fell in love with their instrumental electronic sounds.

The support acts were Alps and Canyons, whose chillout sounds didn’t really do much to amp the crowd, who were becoming impatient for Ratatat to grace the stage as it neared 11pm. They began to chant “Ratatat! Ratatat!” and when they finally stumbled on stage, were greeted with a deafening roar.

‘Falcon Job’ was a great hit; so great that the girl next to me was actually playing her air guitar in sync with Ratatat, who were thrashing their heads back and forth which in turn instigated many in the crowd to do the same. ‘Mirando’ was performed with great energy. Mast and Stroud had turns at beating at the drums, with the bird imagery on the screen backdrop complementing the beats and had the crowd bopping their heads and dancing.They played all their best hits including "Gettysburg", "Party With Children", "Lex", "Kennedy" and "Loud Pipes". The crowd clapped along and, the sounds of girls screaming at the tops of their lungs made the was more deafening than a child screaming.

Evan Masterofsynth had so much energy and at one point appeared to be having seizures on the ground while playing his guitar. The screen backdrop was quite mesmerising and I found myself trying to guess what some of the images were - this just added to the quirky setting of the gig. During “Drugs” the video projected was their official video clip where a random string of people smiled directly at the crowd and laughed. This was the first time I had seen the clip and found it quite unsettling but like most people around me, ignored it and continued swaying to the song.

“I’ve been rapping for about seventeen years okay...” set the crowd into a dancing pulse as Ratatat began to bash out "Seventeen Years" as the start to their phenomenal encore. I don’t think anyone was disappointed by their stellar performance and if ever given the opportunity to see them again, I would definitely not pass it up.