by Moses Namkung

In case you missed them for free the first time around at the opening night of Noise Pop, Deerhunter was back at Rickshaw Stop last night... for another free concert. And if you were lucky, you may have spotted Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain viral-video fame who was in audience, doing a promotion for sponsor TurboTax. Yep, TurboTax + Deerhunter. So sexy.

Opening the night was The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (try dropping that band name in conversation without feeling awkward). The band's first, eponymous album is a lot of pure indie pop fun, and with their California debut, the Brooklyn-based band didn't disappoint.

When POBPAH lead singer Kip Berman broke a string, claiming "this never happens!" he half-jokingly said, "I'll ask Deerhunter for one". Soon after, a skinny man wearing a woolen ski cap leaned over to hand him his guitar as a lout in the audience shouted, "Bradford, I want your babies inside of me!" (... the Deerhunter frontman was kindly lending Kip his own guitar). POBPAH then launched into "Come Saturday", and flew through their set, including the penultimate song, the catchy "Everything With You".

Then Deerhunter rocked. Bradford Cox is a tad skinny ("People think I'm a junkie"; actually, he has Marfan Syndrome), but he has presence and dominates the stage. Plus, he's funny (sadly, last night, he was not wearing a dress). And oh, lest I forget, the sound, oh my, the sound. The young-ish crowd began to show some signs of life with the opening chords of "Nothing Ever Happened" from the highly touted album Microcastle, and Deerhunter took off. Serious face-melting ensued.