Let it be known: MySpace is good for lots of things, like advertising clandestine pot-delivery services, getting 14-year-olds to bare cleavage, and allowing long-lost creepy childhood friends to bombard you with Ethiopian bank-fraud scams. But in terms of organizing spontaneous flash-mob-type crowd gatherings -- even when the bait is a set by semi-famous rock and or hip-hop stars -- Rupert Murdoch's flag flies at half mast. On short notice -- couple of hours if you waited for the official word, couple of days if you read this blog -- the Rapture showed up for a secret show at the Middle East last night, played for under an hour, then stuck around to sign posters and (love the photo) empty the wallets of card-carrying Harvardites. The day before their new much-blogged-about Pieces of the People We Love hit the streets (i.e., today), they drew about a half-capacity crowd downstairs. If not for the need for bouncer-chaperoned drinking/non-drinking sections, the thing could've moved up the steps and been twice as ballsy. Everyone in the first four rows had the time of their life -- the optimal Rapture experience being dancing-at-close-range and crushed-between-bodies. For better or for worse, the Rapture live is still all about function: if, instead of looking for things to shake ass to, you're looking to rock back on yer heels and listen to some rock songs, you end up noticing how much the songs all sound the same and getting snooty about Luke's undifferentiated treble. Still, back on the periphery, OTD was prepared, without actually testing the theory by actually unfolding our arms, to pontificate that the groove of new disc's title track was totally undeniable. Then Young Spitz came walking up and declared that the whole set sucked. He DENIED THE GROOVE. And, y'know, he was kinda right. Whatever Luke's chiseled Roger Daltrey-esque visage may attract in the way of starry-eyed college babes, it also lacks the ability to communicate effort -- even while they're going sorta-apeshit, they look (deceptively?) as if they aren't trying very hard. "Get Myself Into It" is so massive, but somewhere between "Gonna get myself into it/why not help me do it" and "It's the chance of a lifetime," we began asking ourselves whether the "it" was sex or cheap real estate. But that's what happens when body-music's body blows meet with half-full rooms and laptop-strapped curmudgeons -- in other words, NOT THEIR FAULT (ENTIRELY). Still, it is not a good sign when you're watching a band and get bored enough to start scribbling rock-criticky-type notes on your wrist, like noticing Gabe's "flatulent rattling low reedy" sax. No shit, we actually wrote that down, as if it would be useful at some later date. Don't even ask us what this "plays the horn like an arpeggiator" thing is about.