Artist: Animal Collective
Source: Adam Lacey
Greil Marcus: "Rock 'n Roll is a combination of good ideas, dried up by fads, terrible junk, hideous failings in taste and judgment, gullibility and manipulation, moments of unbelievable clarity and invention, pleasure, fun, vulgarity, excess, novelty and utter enervation."
Mark Archer from Altern8: “I will always love my oldskool - but I’m really into my early Detroit techno - that’s what really got me into making tunes.”
God bless Noah Lennox, Panda Bear and Geologist.
In these modern times of immediate cyber-cynicism, snarky dismissal and blog-Nazi stormtrooperology (it’s a word..) it was, and is, an absolute joy to listen to Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion and have the majority of music-heads agree (for once) that, indeed, it is a masterpiece: an album to unite and infuse the world with stomach butterflies, an album to bring together everything joyous about music -mainly the almost tangible sweetness of the Beach Boys’ harmonies, the bleeping roughness of classic rave music and a playful experimentation with sound - and give us anthemic, crackers music that we crave even more with each listen.
And so it was with this unfair, ridiculous expectation that we all marched to Tripod to witness what could only possibly be the GREATEST GIG EVER FUCKING PERFORMED.
It wasn’t.
But it was enjoyable.
Animal Collective will probably always have a train load of New Age pill heads peppered throughout their fan base thanks to their psychfolk foundations and one-time druggy reps, so it was no shock to get a face full of dreadlock and a tasty bang of sweat from the teeming crowd in Tripod upon arrival.
The stage set-up owed much to Orbital and their ilk, with a huge coloured sphere dangling hypnotically over the trio and the illumination of their ‘worktops’ with sheets. It also wasn’t much of a surprise to pick up on the introspective nature of the three dudes on stage pretty quickly. Banter and interaction are not really AC’s thing; they are here to make you listen, move and possibly shit your pants.
It’s well-documented in blog land/forum world and review town that the band covered mostly
MPP
tracks with a bizarre reworking of Winters Love from Sung Tongs, Fireworks from Strawberry Jam, Slippi from Here Comes The Indian and a new one, What Would I Want Sky, as well as the MPP stuff such as My Girls, Daily Routine and a personal highlight, the ravetastic Brother Sport.The band’s leanings towards the dancier elements of their recent music was a huge hit with the narcotically-enhanced flock - and also with those who simply wished to bop - and while some jams were too extended and the whole sound sometimes became murky, there seemed to be a seriously fun dance-off going on in the pit which I could not get near for love nor money.
Tripod can be a hit-and-miss venue and given the sonic balance of their recorded output, AC will always prove a challenge for a venue’s PA system, but it is fair to say that the sound does vary considerably depending on where you are positioned.
As a fan you know from either avid reading or repeated gigging what to expect from the current incarnation of Animal Collective. That is: expect nothing. They are not a predictable band and because of this they will pretty much remain a must-see act for the foreseeable future. What was billed as the gig of the year on the Irish music scene was certainly not that. But that is not to say they won’t return within the year to blow your mind and fill your trousers once again.
And for that I say: God bless Animal Collective.
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