Animal Collective Celebrate Brooklyn

I can’t top these posts about the Friday and Saturday Animal Collective shows as far as pics and video goes, but the guy writing is kind of a douche, so here’s what I thought.

First off, Ali and I didn’t pay to get in. Given the layout of all the previous Prospect Park shows, and the fact that we wanted to be super high when we saw them without it wearing off while we waited around for the show to start, surrounded by sweaty, smelly hippies, we figured we’d have a much better time just having a picnic on the lawn where we could see and hear everything perfectly. Well, the hearing part went fine, but the assbloods runnin’ Celebrate Brooklyn decided to fence and tarp off the concert area so you could only see it from a few strategic hilltops. So with that context in mind:

Audio: Sonarally, the show was amazing. The douche writing for BrooklynVegan (what else did you expect) talks nonchalantly about doin’ a bunch a shrooms brah and black dice were killer and animal collec was sick per usual but cudda gon w/o daily routine cus it’s like too weeeeeird ya no? (I’m paraphrasing). Meanwhile, with much reverence and regard for the music they make, we got plenty baked so we could lay back, stare at the trees+planes+sky and let the sounds wash over us. But you don’t care about that shit. Both nights, they only played about 10 songs (including an encore, blegh) but the sets lasted an hour and a half!!!!!!! Each song was stretched and tweaked. They played two unreleased songs, included the mythic “Grace” and the opener the first night “What Would I Want Sky” which had a distinctly hip hop feel, which I hope they run with because that would sound fuckin rad. They sorta fucked up “My Girls” the first night, which Ali thought was on purpose cus it’s the single, but it sounded better on Saturday so who knows. And they had a reworked version of “Who Could Win A Rabbit” which sounded like they recorded it for Merriweather Post Pavilion. It was definitely one of the best (maybe THE best) sounded shows I’ve ever been to, quality-wise and the fact that they didn’t just play a bunch of hits that sounded shitty live or even the same as the recorded versions. They really bring a ton of new stuff to their live versions of songs.

Visuals: There’s no point in me trying to describe it. Check out these pictures and videos, then imagine it’s nighttime and you’re baked in a park.

Animal Collective aurally and optically proved their dominance, and on Friday, Black Dice opened up with an amazing set too. It was a year since I saw them last (and first) and not only were they sounding even better, but like Gang Gang Dance, they are definitely a live band. Their albums are fantastic, but their live sets are great, one song just barreling into the next, blastin’ ya off into space. The second night, we missed Zomby, but apparently so did everyone else. XXXChange took over for a hospitalized Z-by which woulda been cool, but whatevs cus we already saw dat dude with his better half. Instead, we were subjected to an hour of the DJ that for some reason AC hand-picked to operate between acts (luckily we only had to sit through him briefly on Friday), Dam-Funk. God he was vile. But I’ll have more about that later this week. For now, here’s what it looked like from where we were (www) standing:

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