Panda Bear
Panda Bear has added a set of dates to his calendar for this year. He’s slated to make an appearance at the POPPED! Festival in Philly, as well as shows announced for Chicago, Dallas, Hollywood and now Brooklyn. Update: see below for his latest dates after announcing another show in NYC… >>>
NPR Music recently posted a three-song set from the recent Panda Bear show at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
Sonically, this was one hell of a hypnotic show. Noah Lennox (a.k.a. Panda Bear, also of Animal Collective) served up dense layers of guitar and vocals, while special guest Peter Kember (a.k.a. Sonic Boom) added processed synths and samples and manipulated sequences. The two mostly performed a track-by-track version of Tomboy, Panda Bear’s latest album, which was mixed by Kember. At this live concert, recorded at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, N.Y., the two musicians never visibly acknowledged the audience — I think Lennox said “thank you and goodnight.” There was no encore.
The “You Can Count On Me” is spot-on in style to the one they did live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Panda Bear was joined by Sonic Boom last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon for a performance of the song, “You Can Count On Me.” Oddly this feels like perhaps the most ambitious and daring song to perform in your network television debut, and he takes a two minute track from the album Tomboy and stretches it at least another minute while stretching out his pipes. It’s great.
Photo by @MusicForAnts
There may have been a few people that read the post I published recently where I talked about bands and artists falling retardedly short of the expectations put on the artists by their current fan-base. It’s a fun discussion to have and one that keeps coming up in mind, so I want to touch on it again briefly in the context of the controversy surrounding the Panda Bear set from this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Controversy, I call it, because I’m not sure I read one positive review or got a sense that anybody came away impressed by what they witnessed musically. Complaints about stage presence being nonexistent and implications of self-fluffing high art horrible festival music were being thrown around like fans had an idea of what a Panda Bear set at a summer music festival during the day should look and feel like. It seemed odd to me and if you missed the writeup, you missed my conclusion that Panda Bear needs to take notice and make sure he makes the necessary adjustments to not bore the hell out of people live like he might have in July.
But past that, I continued to do my research. I downloaded the set and read the blogs, and I have to say that I wholeheartedly disagree with almost every notion of judgment that was placed on this daytime set. Including my conclusion that there’s something that Panda Bear needs to change live to keep people interested. Read on to hear why…
BIG ASS LENS has video up from the Panda Bear show on Saturday night at Governor’s Island.
BAL is proud to present this very special footage, starting with this epic five song medley, continuously filmed, with the following songs: “Ponytail”, “Last Night At The Jetty” (3:16), “Benfica” (8:21), “Comfy in Nautica” (12:14), and “Slow Motion” (14:36). A very special thanks to the great community/forum at Collected Animals, who came through big time for us after we ran into some technical difficulties at the show. AC/Panda fans are among the most loyal and active out there, and they deserve props for making this production possible.
Make sure you check out Whitperson’s review from the show here. Read on for the video…
Panda Bear @ Governor's Island, NYC 9/11/10 | Photo by @whitperson
On Justin’s strong recommendation (err…absolute insistence), I headed over to Governor’s Island last night to check out Panda Bear. Despite being exhausted from a late-night on Friday, the outing alone could have been worth it just for the ferry ride over to Governor’s. Not only was it an absolutely beautiful night in NYC, but the 9/11 memorial lights streamed up to the night sky from Ground Zero and added a magical (if ominous) glow to the lights of the NYC skyline. It made for an amazing and intense ambiance to take in some of the most unique music I’ve heard in a while. READ MORE
