Sorry fellow Indie Schmarmers for taking so long to get this one on the site, I have been a bit busy recently. But alas, here it is, the weirdest show I’ve ever seen and delivered by no less than MGMT. Back in early May, on some date that I forgot, MGMT played a “secret” show in a parking lot on the USC campus. As one would expect, the show was packed full with douche bags and dirty whores. The entire crowd smelled like a Victoria Secret store mixed with your grandpa’s breath after he smoked two packs of Lucky Strikes. Yum.
I’m pretty sure I was the oldest person there and I’m only 24. MGMT definitely brings a young crowd, and playing a campus show was actually perfect for them. The only real problem, aside from the other things I’ll soon rant about, was that the sound was total shit. Everyone was talking as the show started and the sound was so low you couldn’t hear anything the band was doing. I had to listen to one of the douche bags next to me talk about how his dad had sent him to South Africa to work for the summer and how he had “made bank bro”. As all that was going on, there was a stream of tiny little young girls running into me trying to get to the front. It was the most annoying thing I experienced that night. I felt like I was invisible from the prepubescent girls as they ran into me like we were at a football game, and not one said sorry…not one. I should have expected this though due to me being at an MGMT college show.
Anyway, as the show went on it got more and more rowdy. Near the end, all the drunk frat kids in the front pulled up one of the metal fences and held it above the stage so it hit the stage lighting. Of course the band had to stop playing and left the stage. Then one of the audience members decided to take control and got on the mic and told everyone to back up from the stage because there was some girl hurt and the show would have to be canceled. I’m surprised he wasn’t tackled by security, then again, I was at an MGMT college show…I keep forgetting.
As a result from the above mayhem, the show had to be stopped for a good 15 minutes. I was pretty much ready to leave at that time, and most of the crowd left except for the true fans. Then out of no where the band wandered back up on stage as if they were lost. Andrew VanWyngarden, the lead singer, came out in these crazy stretch pants with weird designs all over them (as seen below), a baggy work out T-shirt, and Ray-Bans. He looked like a hot trophy wife from the 80’s…ok, he just looked hot.
What’s even weirder, is when they came back out, no one clapped or cheered. They just strolled out, picked up their gear, and kicked into what I think is one of their best songs “Kids”. The show picked up steam immediately from there. There were kids (no pun intended) hanging out of windows from neighboring frat houses watching the show, the sound was a little louder, and everyone who stayed sung along and jumped up and down and went crazy. After “Kids”, they played “Weekend War” and closed with “Time to Pretend”.
After putting up with the annoying frat kids, bad sound, the show being stopped, the last 20 minutes of the show was very worth it, and in retrospect, it was the best and worst show I have ever seen united as one.
Thank you MGMT for achieving the impossible.
- loren
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