It was Sept. 26 and thousands of UW students and Madison citizens were trying to catch the slow-wave that stretched across Camp Randall during the South Florida Bulls football game. Later that night though, only a couple hundred people headed to the Majestic Theatre to catch the psychedelic waves of Panda Bear, aka Noah Lennox, the noisy-yet-harmonizing percussionist and singer for Animal Collective. Lennox put on a show filled with wild visuals and blaring strobe lights for the Majestic patrons while performing loads of new material.
The show started with the New England-based Blues Control, a droning acid rock duo. They began their set with a distorted instrumental jam of the classic Beatles song “Day Tripper.” The iconic riff was transformed into a droning loop played alongside dissonant keyboard-banging, which garnered many bobbing heads of approval from the audience.
As the set went on, it devolved into more and more noise. The dissonance of the instrumental freak-outs combined with the strained looks of audience members attempting to enjoy it led me to believe that I had somehow wandered into a “Portlandia” skit. After about thirty minutes of nonstop acid-fueled jams and drum loops, many were becoming antsy to see Panda Bear take the stage.
Lennox’s set-up looked like a futuristic battle-station due to the huge mass of wires draping from several different electronic boxes. When he finally stationed himself behind his tools, the audience went wild. He began his set with an incredibly harsh electronic blair coupled with a projected video of horrifyingly-painted tribal humans screaming directly to the audience.
Some of the crowd was spooked by this intro, but most audience members knew that this was only the start to what would be a luscious soundscape of Lennox’s harmonies. Their anticipation became reality as Lennox began playing a beautiful and poppy new track. The washed-out Beach Boys-esque harmonies that we’ve come to know from Lennox were ever-present, but were now being coupled with catchy bass-heavy drum loops.
For the rest of the show, Lennox almost exclusively played new material that resembled this new style. He only performed two songs from Tomboy, his fourth album, and played zero tracks from his highly-praised third album Person Pitch. This didn’t seem like it fazed any of the concert-goers, as everyone was dancing to and thoroughly enjoying his new material.
In the middle of his set, the drum machines faded as Lennox transitioned to a gentle harp ballad. During this song, the image of two naked bald blue women caressing each other was projected onto the screen behind Lennox. The calm melody was a great opportunity for me to stand still and realize just how insane the on-screen visuals really were. The tribal peoples from the introductory track returned, this time spewing brown bile from their mouths while smiling. It was a visual that I was fine with seeing once but would like to never see again in my life.
Even with the trippy visuals and great new material, the greatest part of the performance was Lennox’s excellent vocals. The Brian Wilson-like singer never missed a note, captivating the audience with his incredible harmonies and vocal range. All of his melodies paradoxically sounded nostalgic and foreign at the same time. He would often sustain one word for so long that it began to resemble an ancient religious chant.
After Lennox finished his set, audience members began stamping their feet on the wooden floor of the Majestic and shouting in excitement for the encore. Lennox returned to the stage only to play yet another new track, this time sounding like a psychedelic rendition of the underwater music in “Super Mario 64.” Finally, Lennox performed “Surfer’s Hymn”, a fan-favorite off of Tomboy. The audience gleefully sang along to the dreamy bleeps and bloops of Lennox’s electronic contraptions.
This performance is going to make the wait for the new Panda Bear album even more unbearable. Lennox was on point with his new material and showed once again that he can sing like no other. Danceable drum beats proved to blend excellently with his classic psychedelic style. Lennox has clearly been putting an immense amount of work into his new album, and it’s most definitely paying off.
