Photo: Schwartz/FilmMagic
The Dead Weather and Death Cab for Cutie didn’t pick up any trophies last night at mtvU’s Woodie Awards — the college network’s sixth annual party — but they won the crowd over with two strong performances that capped a night of rock & roll dominance as the big awards went to Kings of Leon (Woodie of the Year) and Green Day (Performing Woodie). The show, which was filmed live at New York’s Roseland Ballroom and airs on MTV, MTV2, mtvU, and Palladia December 4th at 10 p.m., stayed true to its grab-bag mission, mixing a stellar hip-hop collaboration from Clipse featuring Cam’ron and Rick Ross with performances by indie rock faves like Passion Pit and Matt & Kim.
Matt & Kim kicked off the show with raucous rendition of “Lessons Learned,” whose NSFW video — featuring the Brooklyn duo running the streets of New York nearly naked — won Best Video Woodie. The band skipped the strip show, letting eight backup dancers disrobe during the song instead. “We’ve done that, we don’t need to do that again!” Kim told Rolling Stone. “They were ready to take it off,” Matt added. “We were giving them clothes we had lying around, but to take off skinny pants while hopping around is not the easiest!”
Passion Pit had a few pre-show jitters and told RS it was their first-ever awards show performance. “This is like an assimilation, right?” lead singer Michael Angelakos asked. Despite his confession the band was “a little scared,” their energetic set of “Little Secrets” and “The Reeling” got the crowd dancing; Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester was even spotted singing along.
Angelakos also told us he was thrilled to finally get to see Death Cab for Cutie for the first time...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily