I don't believe in perfect, but I believe in pretty close. The last M83 show I saw was damn near perfect. To this day, I still feel like grabbing people and yelling, "you need to see them!" when they come on. Since I don't want to be considered a loon undiscovered, I usually opt for a more polite version of this interaction that includes less touching and more pitch control. That seems to lead to social harmony but it doesn't cool the feelings inside, dammit. What do I do with those?! The answer soon became clear: I had to see another stop on the tour. But I wondered, would seeing the same set poke a hole in my passion? A lack of surprises can clip the wings of songs that are only good for one go-round. Luckily, M83 doesn't bring those type of songs out on tour.
On Wednesday M83 came back to Portland for a victory lap, and as you'd expect, there were differences. This time, the band was more low-key in terms of energy and song selection. That's not to say they were static, boring, or any other term that should be construed as negative. Anyone that saw them dance it up on "Sitting" or "Couleurs" can attest to that. The show just felt a bit sleepier than the last one, favoring long, dream tracks over ragers. "Reunion," for example, was the first upbeat song of the night, but fourth in the line-up. Anthems were no longer the go-to motif. Instead, the first three songs - "Intro," "Teen Angst," and "Graveyard Girl" - were much more indicative about what the night would entail. The band wanted to play more head than body music. So the crowd thought a bit more than it moved.
The ordering of the songs also diverted us back to our brains."Steve McQueen" faded into "Wait." The intensity of "Midnight City" was cooled by "A Guitar & A Heart." Often they were building up, only to fan out on the next song. This tampered with the highs, but it did nothing to dent the crowd's enthusiasm. And whenever the body music did arrive, the roof blew off the place. "Midnight City" got the biggest roar from a crowd that had traded some hipsters for common people. Together both species of Portlander danced together under the laser tag lights, eating up that synth yelp bop like it was a Flintstone tablet. And then the song grew, and an unforeseen sax player rushed out to hammer on an extended version of "MC's" famous solo. The crowd lost it. Perhaps caught up in the moment, Anthony Gonzales decided he wanted to crowd surf and jumped from the barrier into a nest of waiting arms. He smiled broadly as he got passed over head, and when the song ended, the band was given the most rapturous (and I mean that word) applause they received all night. "Couleurs" might have been more energetic, but that sax solo did something to those people. The song shifted into a celebration of life, rather than a celebration of sound; and if you attend a lot of shows, you know that's rare.
Another rare treat came earlier in the night when the band played their remix of Daft Punk's "Fall." Like a lot of things Gonzales creates, there's a haunting quality to what lives beneath the layers. It is also packed full of unspoken imagery. Listen and you can almost see yourself driving away from a life just given up. It's attached to the resignation in his voice, and it's in the strength behind it. Songs like this were what helped you just sink in whenever the band took their foot off the gas. The world would melt and you would be taken somewhere else, returning only when a high note or well-placed detail would suddenly snap you back into the fold. It made for a different feel, but an electric one all the same. Long and short, my passion remains.
Setlist:
Intro
Teen Angst
Graveyard Girl
Reunion
Sitting
Year One, One UFO
We Own the Sky
Steve McQueen
Wait
Fall
This Bright Flash
Midnight City (w/ extended sax solo)
A Guitar & A Heart
Encore:
Don't Save Us From The Flames
Skin of the Night
Couleurs
Videos from Show:
