There are strobes and lights a-plenty but no Dan Deacon. Turns out, enquiring of a stranger, that our Dan is down on the bricks with us, jammed against the stage, unloosing some of the slammiest indie techno dance noise ever heard on planet Earth. Frenetic but melodic but pounding and clearly utterly infectious. I don't know that I've ever just stepped into a scene like this, this sea of kids bodies hangs mid-air on Deacon's every beat. Ain't long I'm pulled slightly in then of a sudden, it ends. I'd hoped to catch thirty minutes but instead have to settle with fifteen, fifteen very catchy minutes. Alright by me, I'm now officially primed. Next up Animal Collective. Been meaning to see them for yars and yars. I do make a note to myself though: next time Dan Deacon is in town, get there on time. And with a lot of saved up energy.
Puffy plastic indecipherables on either side of - and behind - the stage. At the appointed hour distorted, f'd-up vocal samples meet up with dim flashing graphics and then the Animal Collective boys come ambling on stage, donning guitars and head lamps. Tripping time!
Somewhat low-key since 2011's album-of-the-year Merriweather Post Pavilion, it will be curious to hear where their power lies. Theirs is a difficult pop, always has been. Woozily angular, swamped at times in synthesizer washes, there's also something so centrally human to their sound, there's the excitement and doubt and jittery wonder and the uncertainty of where your next beat is coming from.
And a beats here are both murky and huge and occasionally crisp just to mix things up. Mostly what their sound is, though, is busy. Not a lot of space in Animal Collective songs. Once they get going they go in several angles all at once, somehow converging into a splendid whole. How they do it is the crux of their success. Repeated motifs dominate, vocals sometimes secondary, backgrounded as if they're meant to reflect our ultimate voicelessness in the face of all the noise going on around us all the time.
But - and this is paramount - AC are never 'theoretical,' they don't get lost in being analytical, though, okay, 'cerebral' can be attached to them, no point disputing that. At one point I'm reminded of Lemon Jelly, at others (gasp) Vampire Weekend, meaning there's an undercurrent of playfulness in the air here and it can be hypnotic even as that cerebreality arches over our heads in neon splendor.
Predominant though is the trippyness, music lysergic enough to withstand the fog machines. It's not a stretch to be reminded of Pink Floyd's early years at The UFO Club, though we're more structured here, there's no improv excursions driving into the dawn and here I guess we get to the nubbin: Animal Collective practice the ancient craft of expensive head music within a prescribed framework, each song a psychedelic snapshot, at least sonically.
All of which, come to think, speaks to this time we're living in pretty succinctly. Wanna trip out but not all night, we're too busy, got things to do in the morning.
But boy do they hit complexity's sweet spot and do it often. Not often remarked upon, in fact, is exactly that, the sweetness inherent in Animal Collective's sound. Almost always challenging in some way, seldom do they lose sight of such a central niceties as hook and melody, even if it does frequently sound like those hooks and melodies are coming from four or five different songs all at once. They are in a rarefied league with Dirty Projectors, and as stated in last year's blog post of that show, I've got some prog rock fans that are missing out. There may not be the same emphasis on virtuosity - though these lands can surely play - but that sublimely controlled sense of soon-to-drift-off-the=rails would pull in any Soft Machine fan if only they'd let themselves be pulled in.
As always I do my best to spread the word and after tonight's performance I'll be even more of an Animal Collective evangelist.
I arrive back it Branx (see MFNW blog post # 3) discover two things: an unholy face-melting (but in a good way) racket and, I forgot my ear plugs at home. Oh well, I've lasted this long.
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Wooden Indian Burial Ground are a kind of three headed blues-based boogie psychedelic animal, a Portland power trio that has no truck with any notion of pulling punches. Whatever the guitarist (it's either Justin, Dan, or Paul; an internet search was fruitless in determining who's who) is singing is surely immaterial, this is raw paint-peeling noise (good thing it's exposed brick walls in here) but truly? They're great, a throwback to the Monsters of Rock of yore and naturally stuff like this is always refreshing at least for a while. I've been here 15 minutes so far and I'm still giddily on board. I'll keep you apprised.
One thing's clear: I'll walk out after their set thinking 'That was a blast' and too right I'll be. All that said, though, it's not as if WIBG isn't without sufficient tuneage as they decidedly are. Barrage rock as they may be, the Nuggets-ready (better make that Pebbles-ready) hook quotient is fully present.
Another band I've been waiting to see, its nice to check them off the list and they end with a stormer, much indebted to Alvin Lee & Ten Years After, on the one hand rougher and more garage, on the other, the guitarist, midway, abandons actual guitar and twiddles a suitcase of knobs wherein samples of his guitar runs. Pretty damn cool and in the end I don't care where they come from, that boy can play and he's got the jet fuel rhythm section necessary to help propel you right out of the water. Go see them next time you have a chance, just remember your ear plugs.
I'm back in a very crowded Branx in time for Unknown Mortal Orchestra's set but I have to come clean. For one, the pen I had been using since the original faded on me back at Pioneer Courthouse Square, the spare I pulled from my bag, well, I left it back in the car when I was dictating the above paragraphs. So, no notes. And for two: the wall was finally hit (too bad it was an exposed brick one, eh?), the last hiss of steam fizzled out of me and I was done. I sat for a time in the entryway to Branx, soaking up what wondrous last strains of UMO that I could before being forced to drift in a near coma back to my car and head home. Knew it was going to be a test to hit the first three nights of MFNW while getting up to go to work at 5:40 every morning and I'm pleased I made it this far and didn't see the wall coming until I hit it. So, sorry about that, sorry to UMO, but that just means I'll have to make a special effort to see them the next time they play the Mississippi or wherever. But the good news is, I'm all rested up now, just about to head out the door for Saturday night's go-round. Hoping for Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Shuggie Otis, Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Depends on the lines, depends on the whims of the moment. See you tomorrow.
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