MGMT, Brixton Academy, London
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MGMT are learning their lesson. Having been booed at a London gig last year for discarding the hit single "Kids" from their set list, Brooklyn's most exciting electro-poppers expertly ensured that this time, things were very different.
The slow start can be partly blamed on at least a third of Brixton's geek-chic audience, who quickly made it clear that they had only come to dance to the three radio-friendly hits from MGMT's second album, Oracular Spectacular, which catapulted the band to fame in 2008.
It can't be easy for musicians to balance their feelings towards their less committed fans, and MGMT have been accused of trying to weed out said followers with their third, more experimental album offering, Congratulations. Still, 10 minutes in, founding members and frontmen Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden and their band showed that they are willing to compromise, offering up the driving delicacy of the ethereal "Electric Feel" which invited comparisons with the entrancing psychedelics of The Flaming Lips.
The appeasement works, keeping the audience's attention for the dark, hectic new track "Flash Delirium". The band's sound climbs to climax for "Of Moons, Birds and Monsters" before "4th Dimensional Transition" slowly rebuilds the intoxicating, otherworldly mesh of electronics.
It's not long before the MGMT frontmen interrupt the medicine with another spoonful of sugar. Abandoning their instruments and technical guitar solos, they take up wireless mics to bound around the stage for the long-awaited "Kids", and bask in the crowd's explosive cheers.
The follower has a poignancy that escapes those already making their way to the door, as VanWyngarden movingly pleads "I hope I die before I get sold" from "Siberian Breaks".
Succesfully weeded, the core crowd at Brixton are clearly captivated by the last song, "Congratulations", and MGMT leave the stage smiling.
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