Gigantic LED screens lit the stage as Passion Pit took the stage with entrance music pounding through the speakers, an evolutionary gesture. The crowd, a mixture of hardened hipsters with their battle stories and tweens with tickets bought on parental credit cards, lost their collective minds in that cocktail of excitement and uncertain celebrity usually associated with mid-level professional athletes and reality television stars. Passion Pit, the kids from Boston with that independent EP turned Columbia Records LP, proved as magnanimous as confident in their pose, saying something unspoken like, "Dear 3,000 people, thanks for buying tickets to see us. Appreciate it. Now we're going to light this place up, okay?"
For a band who little more than 18 months ago was playing their now famed residency at Pianos, filling the joint at Terminal 5 could have been nothing more than surreal. As if paying homage to their humble beginnings, the band opened with "I've Got Your Number," the lead-track from their self-released EP Chunk of Change. The crowd appeared clocked in on the band's catalogue, words memorized and movement ready. The band then proceeded to make good on their unspoken promise, playing "Make Light" as the room turned into a cascading series of flashing, white LED lights.
The set opened in massive character, lagged a bit in the middle, only to find its legs in the home stretch. The band closed the main set with second-single stunner, "Little Secrets," turning the crowd into little bubbles of boiling water, popping to surface as if driven by something non-negotiably elemental. After a well deserved encore, Passion Pit returned with "Eyes Like Candles," an explosive cover of The Cranberries' "Dreams," acting as the nights' most unexpectedly pleasant moment; before closing with "Sleepyhead." As the floor turned into an undulating mass of clapping, stomping and jumping, Michael Angelekos stormed around the front of the stage. This was nothing like band who played the city those short months ago; turned into a rapidly growing, hungry animal. As the lights swam around the stage, you wouldn't want to forget where they had been but it was far scarier to think about where this band could be going.
Listen :: Passion Pit - "To Kingdom Come" [Artwork Remix]
5 comments:
thanks for writing this. i felt like i witnessed something special on Saturday night and was surprised there was not more online coverage following. overall i think the band finally put all the pieces together and found a way to pull of 'manners' live. its a terribly hard sound to get across live. they sounded 150% better at Terminal 5 than they did at Bonnaroo this past summer. I guess that's what months and months on the road does to you. cheers to PP.
i've heard that bonaroo set talked about as the best thing that happened down there. and that's from a high-up a&r guy. they killed t5 this weekend. undeniably.
hype wise, yes. but sound wise, MGMT on 2ci was wayyy better. lol
thanks again for the great PP review. i thought i'd share a video of an electro/pop artist here in miami. i actually came across your blog through Hype Machine where his video was posted yesterday.
anyway, here's Jesp:
http://www.offtheradarmusic.com/2010/01/jesp-exclusive-video-premiere.html
he'll be in NYC in April. id love to hear your feedback.
Heh, Idk if 2ci alone could make that unich tolerable.
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