Reviews

First off, let me make it clear it’s great that the guys from MGMT came down for free to play a free gig. After a disaster, most big acts cancel their shows; adding one is probably a fairly rare occurrence. That said, this gig was fucking terrible.

Part of it may be a matter of expectation. Although it was touted as a “Secret Session,” the identity of the act was gleaned fairly readily on Facebook earlier in the day, and once they took to the stage in the UCSA Big Top everyone was ready for an entertaining night out. Even if they were just performing a DJ set without the touring band, it was still MGMT.

So initial excitement quickly turned to confusion and disinterest as the pair of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden started in on a set of music that, kind of bizarrely, wasn’t their own. This might have been okay, albeit still disappointing, were they talented DJs. But they’re really not. Their stage presence was minimal, the hard-hat wearing VanWyngarden resembling a confused linesman punching at the controls of a cherry picker; and the tracks were played with little creativity or impact. A couple of power outages could have allowed for some audience banter and fun, but ultimately provided only a respite from the general banality of the performance.

Needless to say, the crowd began to thin noticeably over the first hour. But then, eighty minutes in (though it felt kind of like a lifetime), the duo gave the crowd something to cheer about. As the opening strains of “Kids” played over the speakers, the crowd surged forward as if running from an aftershock. Goldwasser and VanWyngarden sang along with their backing tracks, and for a brief few minutes, things were a lot of fun. But with the conclusion of the song, they chose not to capitalise on the goodwill of the crowd; returning instead to their cavalcade of monotony.

Excitement returned briefly with the penultimate song, their own “Electric Feel,” but they added nothing to it, essentially playing it through the laptop while swaying a bit – no live vocals. When the lights came up as curfew descended, some of the crowd lingered in hopes of an encore, but none was to come – only the sight of the duo sheepishly packing away their equipment. It may have been an incredible piece of performance art, but as a performance, it was entirely lacklustre.