Caveman’s debut album, CoCo Beware, took at least the segment of the music blogging world that I read by storm at the end of 2011; their pounding, dreamy indie rock was the kind that you can dance to while still taking off on fairly amazing flights of fancy and guitar work. I wasn’t certain, however, how that sound — grounded but otherworldly, really — would translate live, because it’s the kind of music that can lose the magic of it when you take it off your headphones into the real world.

Luckily, the guys in Caveman love what they do so much that the joy of the album does carry over — and more so. They take up a huge amount of space with their sound and their happiness onstage, and they made me want to groove. The crowd was, again, small — and now that I think about it, Carolina’s spring break is almost always the week of/before SXSW, which is crappy for all the touring bands who stop here on their way down to Austin — but a lot more engaged in the set than Gemma Ray’s audience had been the night before. The hipsters didn’t dance — but they looked like they were thinking about it, and that’s an accomplishment in Chapel Hill.

If you haven’t checked out CoCo Beware, it’s highly recommended. Grooving and funny, it seemed out of place to me with a fall release last year. This is a spring record, all sunshine and drums and lilting harmonies, and last night’s set was a great promise of our spring to come here in the NC. I’m just sorry more people didn’t see it.

Full set here.