Passion Pit Shine At Night During The Governors Ball, Day One

Nicole Sia | June 24, 2012 10:41 am

Upon hearing their debut EP Chunk Of Change, it’s doubtful that anyone thought Passion Pit‘s off-kilter electro-pop would evolve into such a huge-sounding sonic onion. But they’ve developed a layered, big sound that soared outside at The Governors Ball on Saturday (Jun. 23) and filled all the festival’s real estate.

The set began with the 1-2-3 punch of “Moth’s Wings”, new song “Take A Walk” and “The Reeling.” All three were on-point and more shimmery than ever, and the band had the advantage of being the first of the day to play in the dark, thus enabling them to use the light show to full effect.

As good as “Take A Walk” sounded, the other recently released new song “I’ll Be Alright” was even better, specifically that syncopated beat, which serves as a tangibly jittery contrast to the Zenlike title. But whatever excitement these two cuts instilled in fans ahead of the release of Gossamer next month, the unveiling of “It’s Not My Fault I’m Happy” probably tempered some of the expectations. To put it bluntly: The song was sappy and boring. But maybe that was because it was only their second time playing it live.

The set waned a bit from there, but the home stretch brought it all back, with the rave-up “Folds In Your Hands”, automatic body-mover “Sleepyhead” and lone encore song “Little Secrets”. The only recurring issue was Michael Angelakos’ voice — a lot of times it disappeared in the mix, but on much of the high stuff (his “high” is everyone else’s “unattainably high”) he was thin and pitchy. But, a lot of people don’t like his voice to begin with, so those issues are arguably secondary to the overall songs. Anyway, we’re giving him some leeway since Passion Pit’s basically been in hiding for the past two years.

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