Sonic Bacchanalia: Animal Collective Live in Berlin
With Brian Weitz aka Geologist wearing a headlamp on the left maneuvering his controllers, Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear switching between his electronic device and drums on the right and Avey Tare juggling the mic, bass and drums in the middle of the stage, Thursday night in Kreuzberg was mesmerizing. The warm-up act was awful (remember that episode from Friends where Ross plays his keyboard? Yeah like that sans the keyboard, the facial expressions and the hilariousness.) Thankfully she did only one song (which still lasted some tedious 20 minutes) before the trio rescued the evening. I brought my camera wanting to get everything digitally and share with you animal lovers but the batteries were dead! So all I got now are some grainy, patchy clips taken with my cell phone. The quality is pretty bad so I’ll only put a couple on Cryptic Clarity. The spotlight is mostly on Avey and Noah: Avey is the lead vocalist most of the time and Noah responds to and harmonize with every idiosyncratic roar, bark, moan, sigh from Avey in unison. The songs are mostly sewn together; when you are still dancing to the ebbing of one song the next one is starting already. There are moments where it seems Avey and Noah are just improvising, albeit in perfect coordination, and then when a song does come to a complete full stop it’s so unanimously abrupt it’s just plain amazing. The concentration, and intensity of the group on stage is great to watch too.
After the show I got a chance to talk to Noah briefly. I told him that when coming through the door the personnel collected everybody’s ticket, intact, instead of just ripping a corner off and giving us back the stub as is usual. My guess is these collected tickets were resold again to let more people to come to the show. But on the other hand if the audience attendance determines how much Animal Collective gets paid for the show, the ticket count wouldn’t really be reliable since it’s hard to tell how many people got in through these second hand or even third hand tickets. He didn’t seem too concerned about it, since the promoter/organizer is a friend of theirs. Noah said it was their first time in Berlin and that they were playing Cologne tomorrow. I told him I just got Strawberry Jam last week and he said too bad they didn’t play that many songs from their latest album (Peacebone and the gorgeous Firework were there, but I was really hoping to hear Winter Wonder Land too). He asked me if I had a good time tonight. Fuck yeah.
Animal Collective is currently touring Europe:
19.Okt.2007 Stadtgarten Cologne
20.Okt.2007 theater place ST. Gallen
21.Okt.2007 enjoy jazz festival Heidelberg
22.Okt.2007 Uebel and Gefaehrlich Hamburg
23.Okt.2007 Melkweg Amsterdam
24.Okt.2007 Cabaret Sauvage Paris
25.Okt.2007 ground Zero Lyon
26.Okt.2007 Botanique - Orangerie Brussels
28.Okt.2007 Bracknell Wilde Theater Berkshire
29.Okt.2007 St. George’s church Brighton
30.Okt.2007 Trinity Bristol
01.Nov.2007 Astoria London
03.Nov.2007 New Century Hall Manchester
04.Nov.2007 Tripod Dublin
05.Nov.2007 Irish Center Leeds
06.Nov.2007 Ora Mor Glasgow
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