April 29, 2008
MGMT
NY2LON Live Reviewby Lauren from San Francisco
I'm always delighted when MGMT rolls into town. Needless to say, I didn't think they'd ever roll into town with a huge tour bus, but that's not to say those boys don't deserve it. It's hard work being young and touring all the time. Since I first befriended the lil guys, they've been in San Francisco three times...that's an insane amount of times! I know that they are huge in England, and I'm pretty sure they are huge here too. Anywho, I'll skip all that and go straight ahead to the review.
Slim's is a strange venue. Not bad, just strange. They have a real cook to make the bands food (a man named Jose, I think, who is super sweet and claims, believably, to be friends with all sorts of big names). They have a big screen to drop between set changes. They have annoying poles throughout the room, which you could conceivably put a drink down on, but seem to serve the purpose of annoying me. MGMT's van, er, large tour bus of love, was parked right outside the little venue, for all the kids in line to gawk at as they approached the show and waited in a long line. I think there is a joke about tour busses being bigger than the places a band is playing...that wasn't quite the case here, but it was pretty close. I was lucky enough to watch from inside as some MGMT crew gave out schwag (shirts, jeans, other stuff they had picked up on the road) to some lucky people outside. Free stuff is great, but you don't smile really big unless the free stuff is given to you, in some way, by a band.
MGMT is a duo, Andrew and Ben, but as a touring band they are joined by some of the nicest boys ever: Matt on bass, James on guitar and Will on drums. The band played a set of songs from their recent release, Oracular Spectacular, including: Weekend Wars, Pieces of What, Time to Pretend, and Kids (the encore). All of which were big hits with the crowd! MGMT also played some covers (the kinks!); you've got to play covers when you only have one album, I would think. I like to think that in a perfect world, everyone loves Brown Eyed Girl, by Van Morrison, and if I were the judge, the crowd at Slim's that night would definitely be in my perfect world. So would MGMT, because they somehow decided to play Brown Eyed Girl (I was surprised, I didn't hear it soundcheck!), "sha la la la's" and everything! Nothing can get a crowd of girls - which was most of the front few rows of that show - excited like that song...it's a fact! I was tempted to run onstage and dance, but I decided to mind my manners, and dance from where I was.
I expect that this little band will get bigger and bigger, hopefully not exploding in the process. In fact, I'm pretty sure they legally have to grow in popularity, it's in the contract, right? Columbia Records is ensuring us of at least three more albums. They have to pay for that bus somehow! WORTH IT.
Posted by ny2lon at April 29, 2008 10:47 AM
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