On Friday night after an incredible day of music as part of my first visit to the Desert Daze music festival, I caught the Animal Collective set and was subsequently blown away for half of the next day before new music started re-filling my brain. Now, thankfully, you can re-live what I got to see with the full video of the set and fantastic sounding audio from the front row. Wow.
Having been a fan of the band for years now, I knew that in relative silence and obscurity this band always makes new music and chooses to debut it long before it’s been studio recorded, so I had a feeling we’d get a set of new music as part of the festival set. And woah boy did we get some new sounds, and somehow this band still finds way to re-invent themselves whenever they step on stage for new shows. There are auto-tuned vocals in some of the tracks that haven’t been recorded yet, with spot-on delivery from the stage, too. And the group layout was a bit different.
Friday night’s set featured Avey Tare in stage center, flanked to his right behind by Panda Bear on a sit-down and somewhat closer-to-traditional drum-kit than we’d normally see him play. Next to his right was Deakin with his traditional set up of keyboards and guitar. Over to the far stage left was Geologist, wearing his patented headlamp headbanger look as per usual. The set was awesome, and ended with the first “For Reverend Green” since 2006.
The setlist and full video of the show is below. A must-hear for fans.
