Seeing Panda Bear live is always going to be less of a sweat-drenched, cider-in-your-hair type of gig and more of a stare-in-psych-awe type of gig where the only type of medical attention required is likely to be a case of hypnosis induced by delay effects. On a mild, Glaswegian Sunday evening, Noah Lennox and his harmonising cohort came close to taking the collective brains in a packed room to a sonically unlocked plane of autosuggestion.
Support was provided by Panda Bear band member, Maria Reis who managed to produce a bewitching solo set using only a three-quarter size acoustic, a blend of modular effects and an ear for lead vocal melodies that seems spiritually sourced.
As for the main act, they delivered some crowd pleasing deep cuts (less deep, more old, I suppose – old cuts) opening with ‘Last Night at the Jetty’ and ‘Tomboy’ however, the highlight was near the end of the main set when an absolutely enormous version of ‘Praise’ from recent album, Sinister Grift, managed to make the fairly modest lighting rig appear to swell in bathing, absorbent colours (note: this’ll be the hypnosis and delay effects thing again rather than a mid-gig upgrade of an entire lighting rig using sleight of hand).
Other highlights included new single ‘Virginia Tech’ and an encore that blended various songs culminating in a throbbing rendition of ‘Inner Monologue’. Given the back catalogue available, it must be quite the challenge to clip it all into a cohesive set list that gives an essential taste of such an expansive artist but, on a mild Glaswegian Sunday evening, for around 70 consistent minutes, they did just that.
Photo credit: Chris Shonting
