Somehow, I’m guessing that’s the first and last Passion Pit show I’ll enjoy. And I enjoyed it a lot, but that had more to do with the audience and the energy in the room – not the band, and certainly not main guy Michael Angelakos, whose chirpy, chalkboard-scratchy voice proved even more grating in concert. Which lasted a mere 55 minutes, by the way. 

Angelakos might have been more tolerable if he hadn’t acted like Bono singing “Pride” the whole time, gesturing dramatically as if whining about his girlfriend is the most heart-wrenching thing ever! Leslie Plesser pretty well captured all this in the photos above, from the www.vita.mn photo blog. Mikey and the four guys in his band would be perfectly cast as nerd friends on that CBS TV show, “Big Bang Theory,” which was actually one of the charming things about them: these bespectacled, frumpy guys going off wildly like they wanted to be James Brown’s backing band. However, ol’ JB never would’ve allowed the mistakes, which arose from their pre-programmed backing tracks – one of which jolted to a halt 30 seconds into “Let Your Love Grow Tall,” and another of which started too early in “Moth’s Wings.” Pretty dang amateurish. The band did a good job adding spark to the poppier, more anthemic songs such as “Sleepyhead” (the show’s high point) and “The Reeling” (the show’s finale), but they simply overdid it and played too hyperactively on the more dance-heavy, beat-centric, hard-chugging songs such as “Better Things” and “Smile Upon Me.” 

Friday’s crowd, though, was one of the most adoring and energetic I’ve stood in for quite a while. The tickets were hard to come by (I heard $80 on Craigslist), so those these kids were damn happy to be there. And they definitely were kids — I’ve never seen so many X’s on wrists at a late-night Triple Rock show. They sang along verbosely to nearly all the songs and turned the lower level of the Triple Rock into a sweaty dance pit. When Passion Pit comes back around to play First Avenue, there will be more hype and more skepticism attached and not nearly as many adulating fans to liven things up, so I’m guessing it won’t be nearly as entertaining. But maybe they’ll have a better idea when to press the buttons (literally) by then.

Here’s the full set list:

Make Light / I’ve Got Your Numbers / Let Your Love Grow Tall / Little Secrets / To Kingdom Come / Folds in Your Hands / Moth’s Wings / Sleepyhead / Smile Upon Me    ENCORE: Better Things / The Reeling

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 9:06 am and is filed under Concerts, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.