Audio By Carbonatix
SunFest Day 4: MGMT and Styx
West Palm Beach Waterfront
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Better than: Your average Saturday in the park.
Throughout Saturday’s portion of SunFest, an abundance of music festival types wandered the grounds, aimlessly searching for party
beads, another beer, or possibly their shirts — a large portion of the
men in attendance appeared to have lost theirs. (I believe most of those
shirts were located floating near the Captain
Morgan floating oasis by later in the evening.)
The two major draws
were nostalgia AM prog schlockers
Styx, who now tour with only two original members (but not
lead singer/keyboardist Dennis DeYoung), and Grammy nominated
indie-pysch darlings MGMT.
At the Tire Kingdom
stage, families enjoyed a performance of Styx classics such as “Lady”
and “Come Sail Away.” Infants danced on the lawn as dads air-guitared the
living daylights out of Tommy Shaw’s guitar solos and moms swooned over the dramatic classics of yesteryear.
Meanwhile, across
the battlefield of lost corperate handouts and plastic drink cups now
mercilessly trampled underfoot, a massive audience easily twice the size
and a third the average age of the crowd watching Styx waited patiently
for MGMT to shock them “like an electric eel.” Warmed up by a less-than-memorable set by New Jersey band Steel Train, the mob of slouchy, boot-clad teenaged girls screamed their ever-loving heads off as MGMT took the
stage in a cloud of fog and purple lights. Faux-feathered Native
American headresses swayed as the audience danced to the familiar
soundtrack to the sale of leggings everywhere.
Truth
be told, MGMT made a believer of this casual fan. They played a very
strong set of both new and old songs, getting megahit “Time to Pretend”
out of the way early in the set and proving that there is a lot more to
them than the hit songs that chains like Urban Outfitters and American
Apparel absolutely beat into the ground a few years back and honestly
making up for a day of local market, semi-national acts.
Critic’s Notebook
Random detail: There was valet parking available… for your bicycle.
Random detail 2: Panic Bomber’s female vocalist traversed the grounds prior to
MGMT’s set smoking the largest cigar I had ever seen.
Personal bias: I abhor large music festivals.
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