Day 1: Loads of neon – and why didn’t anyone tell me about taking drugs?

With October hosting major music functions in its 31 days – Austin City Limits, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and the illustrious CMJ – San Francisco’s Treasure Island Music Festival nestles comfortably in between, boasting prestigious acts to grace the island shores as well as maintaining a crowd size that’s not overwhelming or annoying. Good weather afforded people the opportunity to dress up for the occasion and sample the special brownies the guy in the AT&T ballpark parking lot was offering.

Our highlights and lowlights included:

- Witnessing The Streets’ Mike Skinner being adorable: after he opened with “Let’s Push Things Forward,” he reminisced about his last SF experience that left him bruised— a jump off the balcony at The Fillmore. He then proclaimed to the audience below him “I’m gonna jump into the crowd and make love to you all” before punctuating his set with more words of adoration for the city by the bay.

- Missing Passion Pit as a result of waiting to take a shuttle to the island, which we also contemplated swimming to as a result of the delay. When someone started blasted “Sleepyhead” in the parking lot where we were congregating, it was met with “Yeah guys, let’s listen to the band we’re missing as we stand in line. Real smart. Idiot.”

- DJ Krush providing a most excellent soundtrack as we rode the Ferris wheel.

- Having dinner on a pirate ship.

- Girl Talk being all over the place: crowd-surfing during Dan Deacon’s set, jumping around on stage during his own, and then air pelvic thrusting timed to fireworks at the end of his dancetastic set.

- MSTRKRFT still is just two dudes with a laptop.

- MGMT playing “Oracular Spectacular” from start to finish, which is a good idea if the nostalgia factor is there. But having all your singles in the first half of your album – especially the dance-centric ones – guarantees that your audience takes off midway through your show.

- Afterparty with Dan Deacon, who is so rad I just want to hug him all the time.

It’s a strange world when your ex-love’s sister serves you liquor unexpectedly in the beer tent (why, how did you know I needed a beverage for this conversation?). But in all seriousness, at the end of the day when the guy in the penguin suit apologized to me for whacking my ear during Girl Talk’s set, I was glad to be in the company of some fun – and strange – folks. The Treasure Island Festival is fast becoming my favorite out of all the exravangaznas we have to offer, and it’s for good reason: we all just want to have a good time.

The Streets:

Girl Talk:

MSTRKRFT:

MGMT:

Afterparty with Dan Deacon:

Hot on the heels of their critically lauded full-length debut and a summer spent touring just about everywhere, Passion Pit has announced its plans to continue its brainraid through the fall, confirming a fall US tour. After a late September appearance on Letterman and a pair of shows at Central Park Summerstage with Phoenix, the band will hit the road, traveling across the country and ending up in California.

Tour dates are as follows:
09.25.09 New York, NY @ Summerstage
09.26.09 New York, NY @ Summerstage
09.27.09 Providence, RI @ Black Repertory Theater
09.29.09 Columbus, OH @ Newport Musichall
10.02.09 Lawrence, KS @ The Yard At Beaumont
10.04.09 Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits Festival
10.07.09 Salt Lake, UT @ Urban Lounge
10.09.09 Eugene, OR @ U Oregon Student Union
10.10.09 Vancouver, BC @ Richard’s
10.11.09 Seattle, WA @ Showbox
10.14.09 Los Angeles, CA @ Henry Fonda Theater
10.15.09 San Diego, CA @ Soma
10.17.09 San Francisco, CA @ Treasure Island

Words and photos by Meiyee Apple

Passion Pit played in Los Angeles for two consecutive nights with Cale Parks and Harlem Shakes. Excellent efforts on the two opening bands on both nights, but this is about the dance band of the summer.
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Oakland’s wallpaper. bring the jams every time. They sing about Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck, wear T-Rex costumes and dollar sign beach towels as capes, and constantly talk about mall girls they want to text their love to.
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You’ll either love this album …

On the full-length debut Manners, Michael Angelakos appropriates and amplifies the elements that made Passion Pit’s Chunk of Change EP a success. He remains unabashedly loyal to his shrill voice, supplementing its high-pitched yelps with infectious pop hooks and relentless energy. Emerging last fall, Angelakos was just a sensitive northeastern frat-boy penning songs to his ex-girlfriend. The winter passes and he’s a boldly confident indie-star that records in fancy-studios with producer Chris Zane (Les Savy Fav, The Walkmen), books back-up children’s choirs, and has the sessions covered by The FADER. Out of the dorm-room into the spotlight, indeed. “Look at me,” he declares on the Red Bull-infused lead single “The Reeling”. It’s vigor sets a precedent: Chunk of Change was meant for his girlfriend’s bedroom and Manners is meant for Times Square. “The Reeling” is an attention-grabbing (“here I am! Won’t someone understand?”) and self-absorbed affair, but one that is utterly awesome. As badly as I want to roll my eyes when he mutters something about his “confounding destiny,” the all-encompassing chorus immediately trumps my cynicism.

Though bigger is definitely the operative word in describing the shift from EP to LP for Passion Pit, his girlfriend remains a dominating topic. Themes of partnership and loyalty permeate Manners as he toys with grand language and convoluted metaphors. On “Little Secrets”, he talks about “outlining wet sidewalks in halogen” before the chorus’ proclamation: “no one needs to know we’re feeling higher and higher!” “Eyes As Candles” comes off as a total love anthem while the sing-a-long “na na na” chorus epitomizes his pop sensibilities. In other cases, it seems he’s just trying to come to grips with his new attention (“my world astir and sickly”).
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The seamless flow between tracks is a product of Zane’s experience and grants Manners a strong cohesion. The songs converse with one another and ultimately make Manners sound like the product of a full band realizing their own sound.

Or you’ll hate it …

Michael Angelakos’ shrill falsetto rambles worse than before. Firstly, he sings without direction or care. The helium-sucked screams on tracks like “To Kingdom Come” and “Little Secrets” aggravate more than appeal. Secondly, his saccharine lyrics reek of vague generalities and vacuous moralizing. “So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh just to prove I’m alive,” sings Angelakos on “Make Light”. The rest of the album is plagued in Angelakos’ self-absorbed pontifications of his purpose on this world: “everyday I lie awake and pray to God today’s the day.” Frankly, it’s hard to ever know what he’s talking about. (See: “that’s a frosty way to speak/ to tell me how to live next to your potpourri.”) Without care for syntax, grammar or general sense, his words flail amongst a cacophony of Atari-like noises and cookie-cutter pop structures.

Album launch pad “Make Light” picks up right where we left off. Angelakos shrieks unintelligible nothings like a prepubescent girl in the back seat of a long car ride. It’s truly cringe-worthy to hear Angelakos emulate Jackson 5 and belt out, “let this be our little secret/ no one needs to know we’re feeling/ higher and higher!” And Sweet Moses, is there actually a song called “Let Your Love Grow Tall”? And did he actually just affix the lyric “tall as the grass in the meadow?” to the song title? Worst is Angelakos’ self-victimizing when he boldly claims he want to “make light of my treacherous life.” Cry me a thousand rivers. “We’re swimming in a flood, you know?” No, I don’t. Chunk of Change was characterized by charmingly saccharine devotion, but Manners is full of obtuse nothings without ever being poetic.

Angelakos is putting the cart before horse. This album defines his artistic persona: an uninhibited and anxious grandstander, not unlike Brendan Flowers or Adam Levine. This is fine, if you have the hype to justify it, but Passion Pit doesn’t. Manners only confirms that “Sleepyhead” is still the best track.