Monday 13 July 2009
Passion Pit's debut album Manners is probably the best album of the year so far, having managed to be one of the few bands in the history of music that no only lives up to hype, but exceeds it. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to go see them live at the intimate Vibe Bar in London as part of the Levi: Ones to Watch season.
The evening got off to an interesting start as I ended up getting there several hours earlier than I was supposed to. Long story short, avoid GetMeIn.com for all your ticketing needs. Mind you it was pretty cool being their early enough to see the bands chilling out front.
So we hung out in Vibe Bar for a while, which is not a problem as it is a kick ass place (after all, they have Cusqueña). Any wait was proven completely worthwhile when the concert began however.
First up were two bands I had never heard of before. Apples sounded decent enough, but honestly until their final song Reason 45, which will probably be next week's song of the week here. Unbelievably catchy, great tune.
The next support act, Fanfarlo, while perhaps not having any song quite as good as Reason 45, have bags of potential and frankly, more talent, as detailed in today's One to Watch article.
Then finally we had the main act, Passion Pit. Going into this concert I was expecting the band to come out and pretty much just play their album from back to front, neglecting the EP which had spread around the internet like wildfire, making them famous. However I was pleasantly surprised, and someone thrown aback when the band opened with the deliriously catch Better Things from their EP, before launching into a setlist which mixed tracks from both their EP and their album, hitting most of the essential tracks, with the exception, perhaps of Eyes as Candles.
What was particularly delightful was to see how they've developed their old EP songs, which as you will recall were basically just amateur demos made on frontman Michael Angelakos' laptop, with the full band backing. These songs now sound far better, with the extra sheen and quality that was present in the album and it's a shame we won't get to own thee improved versions.
