Animal Collective at the House of Blues

Nick convinced me to take him to another concert last Thursday. I was a little apprehensive about taking the train up to Boston then leading him around the city (which I am not at all familiar with) by subway. I gave in though, mostly because his birthday was coming up, and I'm pretty glad I did.

The place was packed. It was one of two sold out shows at the House of Blues in about a two month span. The dancefloor wasn't nearly big enough to hold everyone. People were packed in from wall to wall, from the bar to the merchandise stand. And there were even two upper balconies where a few people hung over the railing. This was all particularly surprising considering the fact that Animal Collective is a fairly obscure band. Or at least they were. Maybe it's because hipsters are becoming more prevalent - but it seems like the line between mainstream and independent lately is becoming increasingly blurry.

The opening musician was Grouper. Although most of the kids there didn't know her, I have been listening to her music for a while and her appearance with Animal Collective was a major draw for me. She plays a weird kind of music. It's somewhere between noise music, shoegaze, and melancholy acoustic folk. Unfortunately, she didn't seem all that "into it" that night. She didn't interact with the audience and they didn't like her all that much. She started to get a little monotonous after awhile and finally left the stage without saying goodbye.

Animal Collective was more than enthusiastic enough to make up for it though. They spent much of their set just improvising. It never really struck me how noisy of a band they are until that night - they spent a lot of time just making crazy noises on their samplers or yelping maniacly. The parts of the show I could recognize as actual premeditated songs though were mostly not taken from their last album. They played several brand new songs as well as some reworkings of older songs. The ones I did recognize though were some of my favorites: "Slippi," "Fireworks," "Summertime Clothes," and "Bros." As cramped in as we were, the audience found room to dance and jump around and there was even some crowd surfing. They played a twenty minute encore that almost everyone stayed for.

We got home at about 1:30 that night. I didn't hesitate to take the next day off. In the morning there were already videos up on YouTube (which I will post later). The ringing in my ears didn't wear off until at least 24 later.