All your manic pixie dream girl/boy Spring Fling wishes will be fulfilled with the impending arrival of Passion Pit on Old Campus’ stage. With only one EP and one full-length studio album to the band’s name, it isn’t overreaching to expect everyone to be singing along with the high pitched vocals of lead singer Michael Angelakos.
This American electropop group won’t inspire the getting-out-of-a-straight-jacket dance moves that last year’s Designer Drugs brought to the festival, or the laid back nostalgia of Third Eye Blind. What Passion Pit’s synthesizer and energetic keyboards (yes, they have two keyboards) will surely bring to the concert is a lot of jumping up and down and infectious happiness.
They are hip, upbeat and popular enough, but there are some legitimate concerns. Their more popular contemporary, MGMT, performed at Spring Fling two years ago, and from what I’ve heard, it was a disaster. Legend has it that the Wesleyan graduates were zombie-like, their music was virtually stagnant and they refused to play their one hit — the only redemption their performance might have hoped for.
Let me assuage your doubts: Passion Pit knows how to perform. The Spring Fling committee learned their lesson from the MGMT fiasco, and apparently places emphasis on searching for artists who have a good reputation for performing live. Passion Pit has a plethora of fans who have uploaded live videos from their concerts (check, if you want to make sure). Also, I’ve seen Passion Pit in concert. Three times. They are lively onstage, and do their hits — “Sleepyhead” and “Better Things” — justice. I cannot guarantee that they’ll be ecstatic to be at Yale, but opening for T-Pain is pretty sweet, so I’m going to assume that they will be.
Passion Pit, 3LAU and T-Pain seem radically different on first glance, but they have a lot in common as performers, which will provide for a smooth Spring Fling lineup. All three of them are pop artists. We will be dancing until our feet fall off, and I’m okay with that. Hopefully they’ll all be good enough that we can forget that it’s supposed to be 48 degrees and raining. I know Passion Pit will do their best to warm us up with lighthearted lyrics and reassuring beats. Better Things are coming; this is more than just an Electric Feel.