On the bus ride to the Middle East, a little-too-excited couple recounted their New Year's Eve Passion Pit concert experience. "It was so awesome! They were bouncing around the stage! People were dancing all over the place, and then they let us go onto the stage! It was so crazy! The best show!" This description didn't quite click with me. Passion Pit, with Michael Angelakos's delicate falsetto, backed by dreamy electro-pop synths, evokes images of mid-twenties hipsters, eyes averted, swaying gently and nodding to the music. Perhaps an abundance of New Year's champagne was to blame for the craziness. Or maybe I just had the wrong idea. Either way, I was about to find out.
Before the show began, the Middle East was packed to the gills with giddy, under-21, hometown Passion Pit fans. For a venue that usually doesn't fill until several minutes before the headliner steps on stage, the energy in the room was overwhelming. Opening for Passion Pit, Nashville’s Paper Route took advantage of the full house. Their performance was far more energetic and inspired than their uneven EP, Are We All Forgotten. In addition to convincing me to give them a second chance, they won over many in the building, as evidenced by the equal amounts of Passion Pit and Paper Route merch being purchased after the show.
Despite Paper Route's animated set, it could not match the intensity or joy of Passion Pit's 45 minutes on stage. The reason for such a short set: Passion Pit doesn't have that many songs. The upside was that their energy never wavered. They played (seemingly) their entire catalogue, with Angelakos bouncing up and down behind his keyboard, shouting into the mic, his unusually high vocals piercing through the pumped up instrumentals. It's hard not to nod your head while listening to Passion Pit’s EP Chunk of Change. Experiencing Passion Pit live, it’s almost impossible not to move your entire body. For the entirety of the set, the crowd danced, swayed, surged and bounced along to the music. From Stephanie Konarski's New York review, it sounds as though this is a typical reaction to a Passion Pit show. And it made me feel silly for doubting the possibility in the first place.
