And Oh, What Heights We’ll Hit

It’s the first song of the Animal Collective set at the Opera House, & onstage four guys in civvies – no funny costumes or anything – have bubbled up a huge cauldron roar. I see a guy playing bass and a guy banging drums and a guy playing guitar and another guy doing something with machines, but it’s Just One Sound. (I’m tempted to say “wall of sound,” but that’s a whole other connotation.) The only other band I can remember so completely creating Just One Sound live is My Bloody Valentine years ago, & I was wearing earplugs for that one so that probably helped the effect. Anyway, then I realize that in fact the guy playing guitar is also singing, but his voice, and the tune it carries, is only coming through in muffled hints here & there. The bass player starts hopping around, & a few seconds later I realize he’s hopping around because there’s been a chord change. What is this? I know this. What is this song? A ghostly silhouette in the background of a Polaroid.

Anyway, it was remarkable. The show never quite hit that particular height again (at least not for me), but it had its moments for sure. Sometimes it sounded more like this –

• Animal Collective, “Banshee Beat” (live in Orlando, Florida)

– which is pretty cool too.

(“Banshee Beat” is my fave from Feels; I dig it much more than the pop/Beach Boys stuff. And yet, on Sung Tongs it's the pop/Beach Boys stuff that stands out.)

And elsewhere: Stereogum has a kooky Broken Social Scene cover of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” apparently for a kids'-song comp, here. (Be sure to listen for the epilogue, IE the kooky part.) A friend who will remain nameless once told me that hearing “Puff” made him weep well into adulthood.