Angine de Poitrine Conquered the Internet. Now They’re Coming for America

She parked near the Teragram Ballroom in downtown Los Angeles at 1:03 p.m. on Tuesday, ran to Target, and was back in front of the venue by 2:34 p.m. — nearly six hours before doors, in 90-degree heat, for a show she hadn’t managed to buy her way into. She’d spent weeks watching resale prices climb on this sellout.

She got scammed. She came anyway, and spent the afternoon handing out water and Nerds Gummy Clusters to the strangers baking from the heat beside her.

Frank, 52, paid $375 on StubHub for a ticket that was never delivered. He was in line too, hoping for a miracle at will call.

By late afternoon, the queue had wrapped from West 7th Street onto Hartford Avenue. Attendees wore polka dot outfits, a few hats with hot-dog noses, and their ages ranged from toddler to retiree. They were all waiting for Khn and Klek de Poitrine — better known as Angine de Poitrine , a two-piece of thirtysomethings from Saguenay, Quebec who perform as 333-year-old aliens and have become, perhaps, the most in-demand live music act on the planet.

According to StubHub, Los Angeles is the band’s single strongest market worldwide, accounting for roughly a fifth of all resale tickets sold across their 47-date global tour. That’s double the share of the next closest city. These two Teragram nights ranked first and second in demand on the entire run. Compared to the 137 other events the venue has hosted over the past 12 months, they moved about 1,100 percent more resale tickets per show.

What everyone came to hear is microtonal math rock. Khn plays a custom double-neck guitar-bass with twice the usual number of frets on each side, looping the two halves together in real time with foot pedals. Klek plays drums in time signatures that would bedevil a seasoned rhythm section. Nothing is pre-recorded. Every layer is built live, in costume, with limited visibility. Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

The outfits get the attention. Khn’s golden braids spilling out from beneath an inverted pyramid, Klek looking like the medieval lovechild of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker, both of them covered in black and white spots — on their clothes and their limbs — and adorned with golden triangles.

Their manager, Sébastien Collin, compares the experience to picking which Christmas present to open.

“The wrap made you choose the gift, but it’s not a gimmick,” he says. “There’s real music inside.”

Martin, a working musician standing third in line, described his own unwrapping. A friend had been badgering him for weeks to watch the band’s KEXP session. He finally pressed play on his phone.

He’s not alone. The KEXP video — one take, recorded at the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes, France, last December and posted on Feb. 5 — has surpassed 18 million views on YouTube. The comments section runs some 73,000 entries deep, with people talking themselves out of contempt in real time.