Panda Bear doesn’t play live solo sets all that often, so when he does, you gotta stop what you’re doing and find a way over there. I should speak for myself, as up until last night, I had never seen a live solo set from Noah Lennox. His appearances would always catch me at the wrong time during my college years, and although I’ve seen Animal Collective’s a handful of times now, as well as a set from Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks, it wasn’t until Panda Bear stopped by Brooklyn venue Warsaw (for a Red Bull Music Academy Show) last night that I could finally check him off my ever expanding list.
The night kicked off with sets from Torn Hawk and Dam-Funk. Torn Hawk is the alias of Brooklyn-based audio/visual artist Luke Wyatt. He created atmospheric pop music that registered with me in the same vein as Chromatics. It was a cool opening set, and it lead perfectly into the next.
I saw Dam-Funk a few years back where he opened for Animal Collective, so clearly he is tight with the guys. I clearly didn’t appreciate seeing him back then, as his set totally caught me by surprise with how much fun it was. He used a lot of cool, under the radar songs lost over the years, that helped spring forward his own modern-retro funk that was meant to be enjoyed. He wasn’t worried about creating “hits” (a world he doesn’t like) or being a star (he made fun of the Jay-Z/Solange/Beyonce elevator incident). Instead, he was just worried about sharing good vibes (coming into the crowd to perform a call and response with a fan), and his musical knowledge (as he’d hold up the vinyl of each song he was spinning, in order to give it the proper credit). Dam-Funk warmed us up, and then some.
Finally the time had come for Panda Bear to take the stage, but before that we got a preview of the absolutely bonkers light show that would take over the ballroom. The laser light show and visuals were colorful and vivid, all handled by Danny Perez, and were as much as a part of the show as Panda Bear himself.
The set featured 9 new songs, all which are suspected to be on his new album Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper. These were some of the most colorful songs of Panda Bear’s career, full of his expected vocal harmonies and arrangements that just aren’t fair to the rest of music. These songs each had their own individual qualities that allowed them to spread their wings as separate entities, yet also sharing an underlying core that would make sense to piece them together on an album. One particular highlight was a song that had the repeated lyric of “all in the family”. It just may be one of his best yet. The light show and backing visuals added a whole dimension to the songs, that would make me believe some visual of sort will more likely than not be added to the release of the album. It would be a missed opportunity not to in all honesty.
He returned for a three songs encore of Tomboy tracks “Last Night At The Jetty,” “Scheherazade,” and “Surfer’s Hymn.” It was a perfect way to end things, giving us a more than ample taste of his new album, as well as something more familiar.
It was one of my favorite shows of the year, if not for all the great new songs, but for the memorable light show that I will be raving about until the next time I see him.
Photos from the night, posted below.
Panda Bear:
Dam-Funk:
Torn Hawk:
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