Dublin Opinion

Before sitting down to write a quick review of Friday’s Animal Collective gig in Tripod, I made the schoolboy error of checking what everyone else had to say first.

This of course was a bad mistake, akin to going last at a brain-storming session in work - all the good ideas have been mentioned already and you end up pointing at someone else and mumbling ‘what he said.’

Around the internets last week I saw the new word (new to me anyway) ‘blogcore’ used to describe the music of Animal Collective, so it comes as no surprise to find that pretty much every Irish music blogger was in Tripod on Friday. I’d love to see a Flick-style ‘tagged’ photo of the crowd; it must have been like the Sex Pistols at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall.

Photo lifted from Loreana, who has lots more at myleftventricle.

Nialler, as always, is your first port of call if you’re looking for someone reputable to call it like it is. He reckons it was the best of the four Dublin shows he’s seen. As for myself and Donagh, this was the third attempt to catch this band. Attempt Number One was the disastrous gig after the band drove from Manchester with a broken widescreen resulting in Avey catching a cold and not being able to sing - the upside being that we did hear some songs from Panda Bear’s solo album, Person Pitch. The Second Attempt being the cancelled Tripod gig when the band were unavoidable late in arriving - the real downside being we then missed the Whelan’s rescheduled gig later that night because we didn’t hear about it. Anyway, I’m not complaining - a lifetime of being a Fall fan inures you to such disappointments in the certain belief that it’ll all be worth it when, one time, the gig will be excellent. And Friday’s gig was stellar, and Nialler has the video to prove it - check out Brother Sport, which closed the show.

Gardenhead over at Asleep on the Compost Heap begins by quoting Heraclitus about constant change being the central force in the universe. Why would I even try to review this gig when I’m up again this caliber of contribution? Gardenhead points up how Animal Collective is all about change - like the shark, it must go forward or die, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be dying anytime soon. It’s refreshing to see bands like this - not pandering to the casual fan looking for the ‘greatest hits’ and yet not being deliberately obtuse just for the sake of being indier than thou. Animal Collective are making music that Animal Collective love (and right now that means dance music), and if you’re up for that, great; if not, they’re not making any apologies.

Ian over at ThrillPier, wasn’t so, eh, thrilled, with the gig, speaking of ‘a haze of noise that I found unengaging to the point of total boredom.’ Yikes! I think he must have been at a different gig altogether from the one I heard or, more likely, he was standing in the wrong place. Everyone knows the sound is crap in Tripod, so preemptively I stood (leaned) with my back to the sound desk and the sound was excellent. Well, except for the idiots beside me loudly discussing their Primavera plans, their rum and cokes, what part of Spain she was from, etc., but you always get that.

Longman Oz over at No Ordinary Fool also wasn’t so impressed, feeling that it was only at the end, during Brother Sport, that the show came close to ‘catching fire.’ I don’t understand the world sometimes, how two people can experience the same thing but come away with completely different impressions, but that’s the beauty of it.

Meanwhile, grumpy ol’ Jim didn’t make it to the gig, but several of his commenters did. Many of them were largely negative. I won’t name the recently retired blogger girl who, shockingly, left early, but this behaviour makes me crysies.

During ‘My Girls’ I was looking around trying to spot someone, anyone, getting video. I didn’t see anyone on the night but from a cursory search on YouTube it looks like elstevot was on the balcony directly above my head, getting this ’savage little video’ (as someone can be clearly heard saying in the background). It segues nicely into ‘What Would I Want Sky’ - a ‘new’ song that’s been floated around the internets for a while now. Shame on you, elstevot, for cutting this off halfway through. A highlight of an amazing gig.