After failing to get tickets for Animal Collective at the Henry Fonda (I did still see a great show at Spaceland - review coming soon), I decided to give the much smaller Troubadour show a shot.  Judging from the climate outside the club, and prices from the scalpers ($150 a ticket - wtf), you would have thought Tom Waits had finally come back to LA.  In reality, the fever pitch was for the once niched out, often alienating collective from Baltimore, who has deservedly grown a larger following over the past year or so.  All it took was a decade of making innovative and constantly evolving music that always sounds definitively AC.

So after two hours of asking every person in sight, I finally found the one person with a ticket (and a heart) to sell me their extra for only a modest mark up.  Finally in, I gave a few new friends from outside a high five, and made my way to the center of the floor.

One of the most dynamic elements of an Animal Collective show is their ability to play a seamless set.  So for 90 minutes there is always music coming at you.  During past tours, the interim between songs consisted of loose percussion and tonal experiments that could grow a bit thin; however, given their evolved electro approach, the show has more of a club experience (in all the best ways).

All great dance and noise musicians shape their music into a series of builds and releases.  Through loops or static a tension is built that slowly swells, until an audience is wound up so tight they are teetering on collapse, and at that moment the flood gates are opened - releasing the built up pressure as euphoria.  While Animal Collective is based in melody and song structure, they are uniquely positioned to also capture this build and release approach in how they transition in and out of songs.  Towards the end, a track disintegrates into a kind of sonic ooze,  which eventually emerges as the pieces to another song.  This cycle continues for the entire set.

The band was in perfect sync all night and of course the sound at the Troub was full and warm per usual. I’ve written out the setlist below.  It’s definitely Merryweather heavy, but there were some older treats in their as well.  This was the warm-up part of the tour, so look for Animal Collective to be in your backyard from now until May.

Setlist:

#1

Also Frightened

Leaf House

Guy Eyes

Summertime Clothes

Daily Routine

Blue Sky

My Girls

Fireworks

Brothersport

Encore…

Winter Love

Lion in a Coma

Slippi

Tags: animal collective

This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 9:50 am and is filed under live, review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.