The internet is beginning to making a very serious impact on the music scene with the meteoric success of unknown bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who sold 25,000 copies of their debut album via their website.

When Clap Your Hands Say Yeah finished their debut album, they worked hard on the net using the indie blogging machine to create their own fanbase or community, as there is something wonderfully grassroots and familiar in their understated brand of indie pop.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah comprise the musical talents of Alec Ounsworth on guitar and vocals, Sean Greenhalgh on drums and percussion, Tyler Sargent on bass, and Lee Sargent and Robbie Guertin on guitar and keyboard.

The band's songwriter Alec Ounsworth works on his compositions in Philadelphia and brings the songs to New York where the rest of the band shape the songs into like indie pop pearls.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah wear their influences on their sleeves with their inspiration mainly coming from '80's groups like Joy Division and Talking Heads. But to these untutored ears, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have captured the kind of underground mystery and unspoilt charm of great indie acts like Felt, Belle & Sebastian and The Feelies.

So when you hear infectious tunes like "In This Home On Ice", "Over and Over Again" and "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away" on their debut album, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah it is not dissimilar to finding an inspiring but unspoilt band playing in a club you just stumbled into.

There is sense that you have discovered them and the audience feel like the wonderful tunes coming from the stage is their own special secret. Somehow Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have some of the magic dust that is liberally sprinkled over those local bands you were devoted as a teenager and the success of their debut album could be down to the whispering campaign that sent so many people in search for the record.

This all may change as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have been signed and blessed for great things in 2006 by American rock press heavyweights like Rolling Stone. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah recently finished their first-ever tour of North America and are set to take their live show around the world in the next year.

Catch them while their still indie rock's best kept secret, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah play Oxegen on Sunday, the 9th of July.

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Saturday Listings
Sunday Listings

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Oxegen 2006
Buy Tickets

Tickets: €160 for a weekend ticket with camping
              €130 for a weekend ticket without camping
              €69.50 for a day tickets

Tickets are available from Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.ie

Oxegen
Punchestown Racecourse,
Kildare.
Tel: + 353 (0) 818 719 300