MGMT with the "Kids"

Yesterday I donned my college sweatshirt and strutted across campus like I owned the place for the first time since I graduated last May. I wasn’t at my own alma mater, however, but rather a nearby university that was hosting a concert including the headlining MGMT.

Allowing myself to sink back into a collegiate atmosphere was a little bit too much of the smell of pot and nicotine and man sweat for my taste. In such close conditions – everyone standing hip to hip on bleachers to fight for a view – it was inevitable. So I ignored the hidden flasks and joints (when they weren’t so glaringly obvious) and screamed for the reason I came: music.

I’m not sure what I expected to see at an MGMT concert, but it certainly didn’t disappoint: a security guard dancing along (or attempting to stay warm – who knows!) and a drunk guy running from security after doing a victory dance in the empty, authorized area of the stadium and then taking off his shirt just for added effect.

In some ways, watching the audience was a highlight of the show. It’s not that I wasn’t digging the music. Because I was. There were just people around me digging it more, and it was entertaining to watch their revelry.

The band itself put on a fantastic show, and I mean that in the very literal sense of fantastic. Behind the band was a huge screen from where psychedelic images matched the lulls and chaos of the music. It was as much a concert of color as it was a musical performance.

And while the music was great, it felt like the band wasn’t into their own music. I’m trying not to compare to other bands and part of it could’ve been the distance I was from the stage, but the band looked pretty static in their movements even as the music boomed. The friend I went with suggested that this might just be a product of their genre of music, and I’m trying to consider this too.

But their inactivity is partially why I spent so much time looking at the screen – and maybe that’s the reason for it too. The images projected certainly took the foreground of the stage despite being behind the band.

It’s also why I spent so much time looking at the audience, allowing me to witness the dancing security guard and rogue drunk boy. But I also was watching reactions. It seemed like MGMT’s hits were really hits – cheers were louder, waves of movement harsher, hands extended out in what I’ve come to recognize as dancing more prominent. But in between those hits… the audience looked just as still as the band.

A college student upon whom I eavesdropped after the show suggested that the audience was too sober. I’m still debating whether or not I agree.

Edited April 2016 from a post published May 4, 2013 via WordPress

#concert #MGMT #music