MUSIC: Animal magnetism brings the hipsters to Club Firestone in droves

Baltimore's quirky, experimental noise-pop group Animal Collective played Club Firestone on Wednesday, June 10, to a sold out house of hipsters and shoegazers. It's easy to see why these guys are so popular. The Collective, consisting of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Deakin, (Josh Dibb), and Geologist (Brian Weitz), plays ambient electro-beats mixed with angst-ridden mumbled vocals and the occasional African tribal rhythms. As performers, they seemed casually comfortable onstage, escaping into the music with their heads down, smoothly moving from one instrument to the next and calmly screaming into the mics. One of the Animals had a miner's flashlight strapped to his head as bobbed along to the music.

The opener, Black Dice, buddies of Animal Collective from way back, played a noisy set of industrial electro-rock, and I can't say it was really my cup of tea, but they had great videos which helped me get used to the whole audio-visual full sensory experience. The main attraction of a live Animal Collective show is the visuals, which were projected onto two large screens on either side of the stage. The images alternated between psychedelic color patterns and videos of landscape and cultural dance from around the world. It was like watching The Discovery Channel on acid. Their instruments perched on white podiums that picked up the alternating lights and flooded the stage in brilliant alternating colors. The trippy geometric pattern on the cover of their newest album "Merriweather Post Pavilion," served as a giant backdrop behind the band.

Most of their set consisted of songs off the new album, which features the dance-worthy "Brother Sport" and their biggest hit "My Girls." I heard one aficionado complaining to my friend Steve (a die-hard fan) that their new album was a bit too “mainstream” for his liking, but come on, you have to catch a break sometime. And if "mainstream" means that there is a fairly discernable chorus and a beat that you can follow, then give me mainstream anytime! The music did inspire the most successful crowd surfing I have ever witnessed and "My Girls" had the whole club singing along, hands waving in the air.