Story by Jordan Tichenor
Photos by Gordon Friedman
Passion Pit didn’t play a bad show; they played a good show that was severely overshadowed by their openers.
For a Monday night show the turnout was impressive. About half the dance floor and half the stands were filled at Matthew Knight Arena, the location chosen for the show. Seats went mostly unused— the energy of the concert was infectious.
Openers Icona Pop played to a small crowd, but put forth a well paced half hour set. The Swedish female duo kept the crowd engaged, and singer Caroline Hjelt effectively meshed flowing vocal styling akin to Florence Welch with the crowd-surfing stage presence of Alice Glass. Aino Jawo’s instrumentations were loud, fun and got some of the more energetic in the crowd moving. Those who came early enough roared with approval in between songs. They had no trouble getting people on the dance floor well before anyone had found a seat.
When Matt and Kim came on, everything changed. It was their first performance in Eugene in five years, and their presence was larger than life. Their light board interspersed angled shots of their performance with satisfyingly weird visuals. Matt and Kim themselves knew how to keep the energy rising for the full hour of their set, with risky acrobatics on top of their instruments and a mid-set crowd walk. Covers of “Better Off Alone” by Alice Deejay and “The Next Episode” by Dr. Dre blended seamlessly into their own wildly different synth-pop stylings. They were so much fun to watch, people weren’t even annoyed when they interrupted a song with the “Harlem Shake.”
“If there’s one thing we know about Eugene, it’s that you guys like to get f—-n’ weird,” yelled Matt immediately before the first song of their set, “Block After Block.” And their set played to that idea. Their larger than life personas dominated the stadium, and no thought or idea that popped into either of the duo’s heads was too random or offbeat to share with the audience.
Maybe the crowd was tired, maybe the band was tired, but Passion Pit’s performance was severely lacking energy. The addition of three band members caused a noticeable detraction in the sound quality. Michael Angelakos’ vocals, perhaps the most distinctive feature of the band, were barely audible over loud, muddied bass and synth lines. Even for old favorites such as “The Reeling,” it was hard to sing along. This improved over the course of the set, but quality of the set list went down. Mostly consisting of the rest of “Gossamer” that you probably haven’t listened to, “I Take a Walk” halfway through was a considerable high point. After that, the crowd began finding interest in life outside the stadium. Even the presence of some of extraordinary bubble machines couldn’t restore the crowd’s energy.
The lights were pretty. The stage was spectacularly lit. But for most of their set, which was short for a headliner (only a little over an hour), it felt as though I and the rest of the crowd were waiting for the energy to rise again, for the band to rise up to meet the marriage of high showmanship and energy that the previous acts had brought.
It is a lesson for bands anywhere: If you tour with openers who get people ready to dance, you damn well better kick up the tempo on a few of your songs, and try and get some more of the songs we remember the words to in the set. A Passion Pit concert without “Swimming in a Flood,” or much at all from their “Manners” album feels more than a little empty. They did end with “Sleepyhead,” but at that point it was a lost cause.
