“I’m glad the power lasted,” David “Avey Tare” Portner quipped toward the end of Animal Collective‘s set at the 9:30 Club last night. Portner was of course referring to Monday night’s power outage which prevented the band from playing the first of what was supposed to be three sold out shows at the club. Whether it was that incident that ignited a spark in the band or they’ve simply perfected their chemistry, Animal Collective’s streamlined set last night was the most consistently electric and exciting performance they’ve given D.C. in years.
Animal Collective’s live shows have become polarizing affairs, particularly in the recent past. I’ve heard people who had been in the same building describe their shows as both the best thing they’ve ever seen and the worst thing they’ve ever seen. Truthfully, both ends of the spectrum can occur within the same set. The high points of their shows often seem all the more transcendent and blissful after they’ve tested the audience’s patience for twenty minutes by inserting a tedious, plodding and improvised jam into an already mediocre track. At previous shows that we’ve reviewed, we noted the zoning out, fidgeting and yawning that occurred between the yelpy energetic bursts and shimmery golden harmonies.
Thankfully, they shed much of the weaker Merriweather Post Pavilion and Centipede Hz songs from their set and bolstered it instead with the two strongest tracks from 2009’s Fall Be Kind EP. Opening the show with the warm “What Would I Want? Sky” set the tone for a set filled with strong material. All of the songs seemed well-placed with bouncy crowd favorites like Merriweather‘s “Lion in a Coma” going into moments of relief with the slower haunting “I Think I Can.” None of their song choices felt like mistakes.
They also did not slip any unreleased material into their set as they’re sometimes wont to do and as such, everything they played sounded sharp. One of the biggest problems with prior Animal Collective shows has been that the inter-band chemistry had either been a work in progress or non-existent. Both shows at Merriweather Post Pavilion saw the band learning how to play as a quartet again. And during their 2009 show at 9:30 Club, it looked as if the three members were all performing separately from the other two. As such, the songs sounded pristine but the performance was somewhat static. Not so last night when all four seemed synced with each others’ movements and the bright projections on the screens surrounding their set. Looping magician Geologist (Brian Weitz) was particularly dynamic as he bobbed and jumped to the songs’ rhythms.
They also shed the excessive meandering from their songs. It’s expected that the band will build improvised segues and extended introductions into their songs, but sometimes those can turn into a mid-set lull. However, the longest jam of their set happened during “Brother Sport,” which really just led to more animated dancing from both the crowd and from guitarist Deakin. The energy truly hit a fever pitch at the end as one girl decided to crowd surf during their biggest hit “My Girls.” Then they encored with two of the rowdiest, most rhythm driven songs in their catalog: “Peacebone” and long-absent Feels favorite, “The Purple Bottle.” For a band that has built a reputation for challenging their audience as often as placating them, last night’s set was a crowd-pleaser from start to finish.
