Panda Bear - Governor's Island 9/11 - Videos

(More from this show was added on 11/14, with videos of "Drone", "Tomboy" and "You Can Count On Me". Click here for that post.)

Panda Bear - Ponytail / Last Night at The Jetty / Benfica / Comfy in Nautica / Slow Motion

Ridiculously exciting post here for you all. Last night we caught Panda Bear playing a rare solo gig in advance of his new album Tomboy hitting the shelves later this year. Let's us say very directly - this set was fire.

Panda Bear - "Surfer's Hymn", an upcoming song from Tomboy

Similar to his previous dates supporting Person Pitch in 2007 and the monster Animal Collective tour for Merriweather (Vids of their Prospect Park show here), this concert was seamlessly performed and precisely executed. Whereas AC's dance crazed rhythms inject their live output with an infectious and widescreen bounce, Panda Bear's performances exist in extreme close-up and pronounced slow motion. Opening with "Drone" and blending into Animal Collectives "Daily Routine", he established this fact immediately - an already droned out number was divided even further - extrapolated to a slow crawl, and intensified visually by an enveloping, swirling light show.

Panda Bear - Encore - Alsatian Darn / Chores (I Think I Can)

Using a familiar song beautifully mangled as his starting point, Panda used the rest of his set to unfold brand new material off Tomboy. As our footage will attest to, this album is looking very sturdy indeed - pairing hypnotic washes of sound with some gorgeous melodies and brash noisy counterpoint. Ditching some of the more straightforward Kraut-imbued rhythms of Person Pitch, the new tracks veer more into the spectral spaciness of Cluster while retaining the signature melodicism that makes Panda such a popular and likable act.

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. 

More Animal Collective from the archives

Well guys, June is here which means the balls ass heat is about to be in full strength on some better-bring-a-fresh-one to outdoor shows ish (as man could get muggy) . So what better way to kick off the summer show season with some long requested classics from the BAL archive?  And what better stuff to bring back than the highly regarded footage copped from last year’s Animal Collective show? We’ve managed to dig up the rest of “Fireworks” and all of “Also Frightened”, the latter which we’ll post later this evening. If this is your first visit here, be sure to check out our write up from that show, which includes tons of great footage as well. As always, stay good, keep cool, and keep visiting!

-BAL

Videos of Animal Collective @ Prospect Park

Fresh off the intimate Friday night Kurt Vile set in the ever hot-as-balls Cakeshop sweatbox, the BAL squad continued its coverage of the Big Ass Weekend with its centerpiece: Animal Collective catching tons of wreck at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Animal Collective packin’em in a huge outdoor setting like Prospect Park kind of worried me on a dork level out as I recall seeing the band a good 5 years ago spewing shambling noise vomit to a clearly pissed off crowd. I was happy they were pissed just as much as I was content that I wasn’t. I was “special”. No longer. Times have definitely changed for Animal Collective and over the years they’ve undergone a radical, albeit logical, evolution. Whereas the band’s show was formerly a wildly inconsistent (but exciting) caterwauling mess of beat driven filth, their live set has become so melodic and airtight that any comparison to the days of yore are nearly night and day. We must emphasize the "nearly" as fortunately for our ears and eyes the band’s live set is as hermetically sealed as their song-sculpted newer records; and yet as bursting at the seams as the Animal Collective of old. Bursting with ideas, progressions, chords, and more often than not, still dripping in feedback and squealing out rumbles of bass-loaded color. And color might as well have been the defining word of the evening!

We rolled up to the show bright and early to ensure at least a few beers and make sure we had no problems getting past security. Fortunately, security presented no problems as we entered the venue unscathed packing a big ass lens, monster tripod, and other assorted goodies undetected. Basically, we’re gangster.

Lots more after the jump...

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