Passion Pit + Harlem Shakes - Paradise Rock Club (Boston, MA; Jun. 18, 2009)

Eager to get to the Harlem Shakes and Passion Pit show at the Paradise, I throw on a t-shirt, grab my ticket, and shove a Red Bull in my pocket. It’s a rainy June evening—unseasonably cold—and the subway takes too long to arrive. When it does show, it takes me to a quick dinner, some drinks, and finally to the Paradise.

Three hours later, the venue spits me out, a sweaty, energized, electric version of my previous self. Turns out the Red Bull was unnecessary.

Ever seen cornstarch on a speaker? That’s my blood during the show, dancing uncontrollably to the riffs put down by Shakes and Pit alike. The lineup is a perfect one-two punch; it’s summery indie-pop followed by hyper synth-pop that doesn’t rest until your heart is racing 180bpm along with the music.

Harlem Shakes take the stage after first opener Cale Parks, launching quickly into a percussive arrangement of “TFO.” Three members of the band beat on drums scattered about the stage, backed by a rumbling bari-sax, thundering their arrival. The music bends the crowd to its will as Lexy Benaim howls the night’s mission statement: “Our bodies can’t think / Let’s rush to the sunset tonight / Reel in your feelings / We got time to waste some time.”

The boys on stage are young, but lack of experience doesn’t hold them back. Watching them shred through songs like “Nothing But Changes Pt. II,” “Winter Water,” and “Sunlight,” it’s easy to imagine them headlining this show in a few seasons. For now, they’re an ideal prelude, loosening limbs and lips until the crowd sings and sways along to every lick. Harlem Shakes leaves to applause and anticipation.

When Passion Pit takes the stage after a pleasantly brief intermission, the house music is still playing. The band plans it perfectly, segueing directly from the tunes playing over the venue speakers into “Better Things,” a standout from their debut EP Chunk of Change. It’s an unexpected jolt to start the night, and the crowd takes the bait hook, line, and sinker. These guys are the real deal.

A few songs into the set, lead singer Michael Angelakos pauses to thank the fans, noting that although Boston is a homecoming for Passion Pit, it’s their first time playing the Paradise. “I guess we’re growing up,” he sighs. It’s my fourth time seeing Passion Pit in the past year, and he’s right: man have they come a long way in that time. No longer timid on stage, Passion Pit has dropped boyish in favor of buoyant. 

Angelakos and company waste no more time with chatter, don’t sweat the sound mix, and completely blow the roof off of the Paradise. It’s like a Girl Talk show in there—sweaty hipsters mixing with sweaty yuppies, sublimely enveloped by the music.

I’m hard-pressed to think of another band that writes such earnest-yet-bouncy tunes. Every song they belt out swirls with synthesizers. Their repertoire is uniformly hyper, frenetic, and danceable, but it lacks even a shred of superficiality or self-awareness. Here is where Passion Pit differentiates themselves from the likes of MGMT, Vampire Weekend, and even Harlem Shakes. They are blessedly naïve, happy to rip through a catalog of tunes that are all crowd pleasers without the need to look cool. We’re all too busy jumping and jiving to worry about appearances.

The night is as much a collaboration as it is a performance, with the crowd providing shouts of “Oh No!” to punctuate “Better Things,” replacing the children’s choir part to drive “Little Things,” and echoing Angelakos’ own “Oh No” during encore “The Reeling.” Hundreds of voices accompany every song, and it selfishly seems like the band is feeding off of the energy of the audience. 

The band is dead on throughout, emphatically hitting the hits and bringing already lively tunes more to life on stage. There are no lulls and few pauses, a non-stop onslaught of awesome. Even the people on the balcony are dancing.

It’s over in the blink of an eye. Ten songs melt together, a whirling blur of rhythm and bass. An extension of the band itself, the show is a high energy, high intensity affair. It is happiness boiled to its essence and pumped through amps. And when—brain mangled and feet buzzing—I emerge to the rainy Boston street outside, all I can think is, “Damn. Let’s do that again sometime.”

Harlem Shakes Set:
1. TFO
2. Nothing But Changes Pt. II
3. Strictly Game
4. Carpetbaggers
5. Technicolor Health
6. Winter Water
7. Sunlight
8. Radio Orlando
9. Old Flames

Passion Pit Set:
1. Better Things
2. Make Light
3. Let Your Love Grow Tall
4. I’ve Got Your Number
5. Little Secrets
6. Folds In Your Hands
7. Moth’s Wings
8. Sleepyhead
9. Smile Upon Me
10. The Reeling

DOWNLOAD: Passion Pit - The Reeling (Mike Snow Remix) (MP3) or Follow us for more Passion Pit MP3s (Twitter)

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