Gang Gang Dance/New Moods @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 05.04.11

Photo above by Jason Lester

While everyone else was enjoying Foals in Manhattan, we ventured Brooklyn-ward to catch Gang Gang Dance's headlining show at Music Hall of Williamsburg.

The opening DJs did us wrong by spinning reggaeton and Chris Brown in a confusing mish-mashing of the good with the bad and ultimately losing us all together.

New Moods was a step up but would've been more enjoyable if their opening song didn't drag on forever and the rest of the set sounded like the one atmospheric Zola Jesus-y thing they did.

In no time we were tripping the light fantastic to Gang Gang Dance's psychedelic percussion party.

The set list, comprised of mostly tracks from their amazing fifth album, Eye Contact, was something to the effect of "Adult Goth," "House Jam," "Glass Jar," "MindKilla" -- give or take a song or two -- plus an encore. Highlight of the night was definitely the "MindKilla" jam sesh, starting out more stripped down than the album version but gave way to a rump-shakin' drum-heavy extended mix that left nothing more to be desired and culminated in a crush on drummer, Jesse Lee.

This band has been tearing up the fabric of electronic beats and cross-genre experimentation for years, playing their brand of dance all over NYC. This was the first time we were able to catch them doing their shit, legit, it was great to see them perform at their seasoned best.

Grizzly Bear/The Walkmen/Gang Gang Dance @ Governor's Island 8.12.10

Grizzly Bear (Photo by Dominick Mastrangelo)

This was a show of firsts for Snail and I: We had never seen any one of these Brooklyn bands live, been to Governor’s Island or had to tough it out rain at an outdoor show together before, either.

It was hipster central (as expected) and we made fun and gave credit where credit was due appropriately.

We sat through Gang Gang Dance and Walkmen not out of hate but tiredness. I thought GGD’s set was too short even for an opening band but maybe it was just because I was enjoying myself. Walkmen are not a bad band but definitely not worth standing next to the drunk dude singing his heart out and being incredibly annoying and topping it all off with saying us not giving him our umbrella was “a little bit of bullshit.”

In our rainy day state we assumed Grizzly Bear’s beautiful arrangements would make us want to take a nicely soundtracked nap. However, you know what they say and we definitely made asses of ourselves when they started playing a souped up version of the dark and enchanting “Showcase.” Jaws dropped, bahleedat.

Their songs interpreted live are much more awakened and equally as beautiful as on record…we’re also thankful for the decent and very loud sound system at the island. When they played “Ready, Able” we swooned and sighed as we peeked on to the stage through the openings of a staircase.

Our view of the stage was obstructed most of the time by umbrellas. We didn’t get mad because it was raining something fierce for most of the set but some bro behind us was livid. He must’ve been projecting because he yelled at ONE dude to put his umbrella down cuz ‘he was tryin to watch the show’ and yanked at the umbrella trying to start something. The umbrella’d guy did the most awesome thing — just looked back at him, smiled and just kept watching Grizzly Bear’s set. Left with no opponent, the projector just called out “Faggot!” and left the surrounding audience members with mouths agape in astonishment at his base retort. Friggin fool.

Most likely sick of standing in the rain, many people started to clear out let us move further up to enjoy “Foreground,” “While You Wait For The Others” and the hilarious guy shouting out loving comments to the band prior to encore. In our current spots it was also easier to see the detail on stage, the hanging mason jar lanterns. Those Grizzly Bears had one of the most gorgeous stage sets ever!

Walking back to the ferry we noticed how beautiful the tail end of Manhattan looked at night from the island past the kitschy lit-up fake palm trees. On the ferry, we stood next to the Grizzly Bear lover and his friend trying to take pics on the boat speaking in funnies and I scared a white person by speaking Spanish.