Brooklyn – Even by New York standards, Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right is a small venue. The room consists of a slightly elevated bar space that slopes downwards, stretching out towards the stage, where any band over four members has to crowd. Five is a tight fit, six is packed and yet somehow the eight members of Reptar cramped onto the stage for Wednesday’s show.
The band needed space for their two guitarists, two drummers, synth player, keyboardist and horn section among the tangle of equipment. Andrew McFarland thwacked away at his drum set while Reid Wagner, the band’s manager turned percussionist, mirrored his movements on his roto toms. Their synth player, Ryan Engelberger, wore a bass at almost all times and traded off between the two instruments. Saxophonist Walter Fancourt and trumpeter Sean Smith, when not blaring into their mics, matched the beat with synchronized dances moves that involved brandishing their instruments into the air like batons. Keyboardist William Kennedy didn’t contribute much to the fervor on stage, but did have a light show hung behind the band that synched-up to his keyboard. All in all, it was a visual feast.
At the front of it all, the band’s lead vocalist/guitarist, Graham Ulicny, led the small army of a band through a long set of synth-soaked dance pop. He stretched his face, slackened his jaw and sung with enough enunciation that anyone in the audience could have lip-read the lyrics with ease. Ignoring Ulicny’s facial expressions and the fact that he somehow sung with his tongue sticking out, the Reptar show brought a lot of spirit to a small space. It was a sensory overload from every angle that left audience members slightly deaf and definitely sore.
Reptar was a band determined. Every band wants a good show, with people bopping around and singing along, but the odd thing is Reptar never had to ask for it. Most bands reserve a moment in the banter for someone with a mic to prompt the audience to dance. They ask for jumps, for wiggles, for mosh pits and full-body jamming. Reptar didn’t have to say a word. Apart from Smith reaching out into the crowd to slap high fives or prod stagnant audience members with his trumpet, the band continued with their set and the audience moved on its own. Everyone off stage and on was moving around in some fashion to the springy guitar of “Sebastian” or the oddly specific synth patches in “Houseboat Babies.”
Perhaps it is the band’s music that facilitated the process. The instrumentals, namely the percussion and electronics, create this soundscape that is hard to simply stand and nod along to. “Rainbounce,” a single off the band’s debut EP, Oblangle Fizz Y’all, is frankly easy to dance to and doubly so when it’s live and Ulicny is jumping around the stage with an unbelievable amount of vigor. The band brought energy to Baby’s All Right that is usually only seen in first, last or hometown shows. New York was no stop in particular for this Athens, GA-based band, but that didn’t stop the boys of Reptar from constantly jumping around from their various posts, and rushing off the stage, instruments in hand, to finish the set amongst the audience.
Their U.S. tour continues through early October.
Zoe Marquedant
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