Cut Copy/Foster the People/Midnight Magic @ Celebrate Brooklyn! - Prospect Park

By Jessica Amaya via BrooklynVegan

Concerts outdoors are a blessing and a curse. You're at the mercy of the elements: a pitch perfect sunny day is ideal but random rain can ruin weaves or have you regret you wore socks. If the band is still small enough,  you lose the intimacy that comes with a club show to a larger, less attentive crowd. In the masses, you can gain the camaraderie of some nice people who are there to have fun or be surrounded by a ton of unstable, fucked up assholes who chain smoke in your face and talk the entire show. We experienced a little bit of everything at all the outdoor shows we went to this summer and this one was no exception.

Midnight Magic had played and gone by the time we arrived to a people laden Prospect Park where were reminded why the idea, and only the idea, of living in NYC is awesome. Pregnant with burger and waffle fry food babies (we never learn) and tired from lack of sleep and overworking we were put out of commission again by the evening breeze and sat until Foster the People came on.

Somehow we managed to stand up and move, I danced knowing I might barf at any minute but didn't care. Snail, the older and wiser of us both, was more cautious and threw down only on favorites. White people started to dance like white people dance and we found a rare species of black girl that had no rhythm (!) who we wanted to tag for further study. The band was great but we felt great relief to had seen them for the first time at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in June as opposed to this show because it wasn't as fun and as we learned watching their SXSW performances on YouTube, we don't like seeing them play in the daylight.

Singer Mark Foster was more Thom Yorkian than usual on this day. In addition to being a little man with an amazing signature dance style, he did it all in a navy Fred Perry polo which we loved. Cubbie Andreas was still handsome slappin' da bass, mon, free banging in a signature chambray button-down with sleeves rolled up as high as he could get 'em. We're convinced keyboarding drummer guy Isom Innis takes uppers because his endless energy is inexplicable. He goes hard, all day, every day this band plays and that is unnatural so he's on coke or speed until proven otherwise... (not really!)

Foster talked about playing a song for Rivers Cuomo ages ago at a party and I was kinda bored because in our state we just wanted this to be over so we could sleep. That feeling melted away when they broke into Weezer's "Say it Ain't So" in appreciation for the band playing "Pumped Up Kicks" at a show days prior. A massive sing-a-long began and it felt nice to belt it into the sky with Snail. Everyone who felt excluded from the fun with this classic came back into the fold with final song, "Helena Beat."

The lull between bands was just another window for fatigue to seep through. Cut Copy had to come on ASAP to slap us out of this misery. Like a cruel joke, they opened with a series of dance-lite downers. Then "Corner of the Sky"  opened up a handful of body rattling gooduns "Blink And You'll Miss the Revolution," "Lights and Music," "Saturdays," "Pharaohs and Pyramids" and "Hearts on Fire." I inserted my funny dances for Snail into the most 90s sounding parts of a couple songs, as I promised her, and she did not pee her pants this time.

At some point the band was so psyched about playing they came to accordance that they were all moving to New York we were so awesome. Bands will say anything when emotions are running high, won't they? Haha!

During the epic ender "Sun God" we were thirsty and sick of people. We left the floor for some dranks and a seat under a tree for the encore. If we weren't such newbs to concerts at this park, we could've been here all along with a spectacular view of the stage, chilling out with the crazies dancing on the grass.  We did get to enjoy happy dance times in the wild to the beat "Need You Now"  and "Out there on the Ice" anyhow, all the more wise to the way to make it work for us when seeing a band play outdoors.

More pics of Midnight Magic, Foster the People and Cut Copy here

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