Animal Collective @ the Wiltern - I had my mind blown

[Ghoulish Delight]

We didn't think we were going to see this show. It's been sold out for a while. We were actually trying to figure out if we could somehow get away with driving to Phoenix tomorrow to catch them. But we fortunately got tickets a couple weeks ago.

Now I almost wish we HAD gone through with the crazy Phoenix plan, because if we had made what surely would have been a masochistic day trip out there and back, and THAT performance was the reward....it would have been extra magical.

As it was, the show was out of this world good. I don't know what I really expected, but I guess I was expecting something along the lines of their 2-song encore, a selection of their hits with a trippier edge, and a little bit of their less accessible noise thrown in.

What we witnessed instead was 2 solid hours of the most beautiful wall of noise I've ever witnessed, with a 45 second intermission where we learned they had just come from 2 weeks in Big Sur. For 2 hours, they never lost my attention for a moment.

The Wiltern is my new favorite venue. It's beautiful, and it's just a great place for a show. Not overcrowded even for a sold out show, no difficulty finding good sight lines. Great place.

I'll be replaying this one in my head for a long time.