Animal Collective

Words & Photos: Kenneth Coles

Seeing Animal Collective live is such an experience. Listening to them through your headphones can give you such a happy indie movie soundtrack vibe while you go about your day. But watching them immerse themselves in their music the same way the crowd does all while playful and silly illustrations flash and dance behind and on them from a projector takes that to the extreme. 

Animal Collective doesn’t put on a rock concert, they perform within a dreamlike landscape in a dreamlike state of being. 

I’m finding it hard to explain. If I hadn’t experienced it myself I wouldn’t understand. But clearly the diehard fans in attendance do. They arrived in colorful and creative outfits ready to be transported to a trance like euphoria shared by the artists on stage. 

The band didn’t say much but their music and ambiance spoke volumes. They are artists.