Photo: Michelle Ho
It is rare that a band making their debut performance in Sydney can boast to playing a sold-out Hordern Pavilion, but that is exactly what MGMT did when they brought their fun brand of accessible psychedelic pop to the Hordern's massive stage on Tuesday night. Playing to a crowd mostly consisting of 18-year old uni student types, the band sheepishly stumbled on stage, quickly launching into an extended and deliciously trippy rendition of '4th Dimensional Transition' from debut album Oracular Spectacular. A few minutes in and it was apparent to all that the Brooklyn-based duo, who expand to a five-piece live, are more than just this year's music craze; rather, they are a seriously talented bunch of musicians and songwriters, here for the long haul.
Following their epic opener was 'Pieces of What', which when played live became an almost 'November Rain'-esque power-balled, sans the 80s hair-metal cheesiness. They followed this with a trilogy of strong album cuts: the beautiful 'Of Moons, Birds & Monsters', 'Weekend Wars', and 'The Youth', which got a number of punters waving their lighters in the air in celebration. Next up was breakthrough hit 'Time to Pretend', which saw smiles and cheers erupting from the audience from the moment the song's instantly recognisable synth intro kicked in.
Disappointingly, the electrifying atmosphere created by 'Time to Pretend' was followed with the immensely self-indulgent 13-minute long 'Metanoia', which forms the group's latest EP release. The main hook of the song sees Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden repeating "Now you'll never come to another show", and it became apparent that if their set consisted entirely of songs like this then that statement would certainly be true.
'Electric Feel' was up next, and as their best known song in Australia, it got the biggest response from the crowd. And rightly so; the live version was faithful to recorded one but added some tasty jamming from the band during the song's outro. Following this it suddenly became apparent (at least to this reviewer) that the band had played for under an hour and only had one really great song left up their collective sleeves. That song is 'Kids', and naturally, they saved it until last. Sadly, the lesser album cuts and a new song, played before this encore, saw the energy in the room diminish considerably before the night's end.
There is no doubt that MGMT are one of the greatest new bands on the planet. The only problem is that spread over a 75 minutes set, and with only one album under their belt, they simply do not have enough A-class material to maintain a consistently exciting headline set. Brilliant first half though.
Conrad Richters
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