Animal Collective
May 26th at the Fox Theater, Oakland, CA

The white cloth-covered tables behind which members of Animals Collective stood hummed and pulsed in various ambient colors while psychedelic imagery and trippy visuals danced their way across a giant white orb erected above the stage. The images and thumping hues were transient and fleeting, yet the music emanating from the speakers was ghostly and seemingly endless, sounds looping through sounds, laced with vocals that soothed and melted, or drove lyrics into songs. This was Animal Collective at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Tuesday night, a spectacle of light, music, and mood.

I’m a big fan of Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion (besides being a hometown venue where I spent countless nights of my life) will no doubt have a place in my Top 10 list of 2009, and Panda Bear’s solo effort Person Pitch was number five on my top of ‘07 list. I love the hypnotic rhythms of their music, I love how they discreetly weave beautiful melodic threads through the dense fabrics of their compositions, and I love the haunted, experimental edge they brought to their live show. That said, I also expected more on Tuesday night. Part of my, eh, discontent, could be in part to the spotty sound at the Fox. While it’s no doubt a gorgeous, grand place, it was only when I stood right behind the sound board that the layers of music didn’t get swallowed up by the echo of the vast ceiling; the sound to the right or left of the stage was downright atrocious for a band like Animal Collective that’s reliant on pristine layering. The band spun through a nine-song set, material from records old (2003’s “Chocolate Girl” kicked off the show, “Fireworks” from 2007’s Strawberry Jam was there) and new (besides playing the yet-to-be-recorded song “What Would I Want Sky”, they did, of course, play music from MPP, among them “Summertime Clothes” and “Guys Eyes”), before breaking for an encore, during which the chatty crowd willed them back with applause and whistles. They ended the evening with “Banshee Beat” from 2005’s Feels, and then the crowd-pleasers “My Girls” and “Brother Sport” from MPP, during which, from my vantage, I could peer into the packed sea of fans down front, over which a crowd surfer made a mildly successful attempt to, well, surf. The hypnotic buzz of the show and the melting atmospherics of the visuals, strobing sounds, and grandiose environment in which it was all brewed and served left me with a pure and pleasant feeling. I just wasn’t ecstatically enthralled like I had expected to be (and I was sorely missing a personal song favorite, “In the Flowers”). If I had to choose, I’d take my Animal Collective on album; still, it was a damn fine show.

Watch: Animal Collective, “Summertime Clothes” [at youtube.com]

Read past installments of It Shows:

The Horrors: May 21st at Glass House, Pomona, CA and A Place to Bury Strangers: May 22nd at Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn

dredg: May 19th at Great American Music Hall, SF

Avett Brothers: May 16th at the Fillmore, SF and Little Boots: May 18th at Le Poisson Rouge, NY