Passion Pit at The Middle East

We board the eighty-six bus, transfer at Harvard, ride one stop to Central, and walk to the Middle East. IDs are checked and we walk down the stairs. It's a basement, no windows, walkway along the left side, two bars, and people standing on the floor. The ceiling is ten feet tall, but it reaches over our heads and presses towards the ground. The crowd is anxious. They have come for Les Savy Fav. A band whose wikipedia page is being considered for deletion doesn't interest them, they are indie rockers, hard rockers.

The show is sold out, but the crowd hasn't arrived. People come in, people leave. Jeff Apruzzese, the bassist, makes out with a girl behind the stage. He wears my purple Ben Sherman short-sleaved button-up, and I can't stop watching it. Passion Pit moves to the stage. People clap, they clap and the show begins. We watch Michael Angelakos play his tiny keyboard, his facial hair swaying with the rhythm. Dancing comes slowly, but soon the crowd moves to the left, to the right.



"You're gunna drive me crazy, you're gunna drive me mad"

The boy next to me jumps up and down. His hands are marked with black crosses, between eighteen and twenty-one. This will not be another boring under-appreciated show. This will not be sad. I look at Christine, I smile, we begin to dance. We are Portlandia and Cascadia. The next song is Live to Tell the Tale. It is flawless, of course.



"This is the room where we always dreamed, of grass and splendid evenings"

We fall into movement, crushing the space around us, nodding heads and kneading feet. I start yelling and throwing my arms in circles, Christine smiles and shakes her head, everyone around is my friend. Then I look back and see a roomful of absently standing people just moving to the music, completely missing everything.



"Have you seen me cry, tears like diamonds"

The music scene of Boston is here tonight, they dance with us, they stare and sigh at us, they check the time on their cell phones. "Passion Pit," I yell, "I fucking love you!" Between up and down jumping I see indifference and amusement. There isn't anywhere but the basement, Passion Pit in the basement, and dancing in the basement.


Passion Pit performs here at their home and nobody fucking cares. Maybe it's fitting that they're just another opener in a city of missed opportunities, but what Christine and I had with Passion Pit was beautiful. It was perfect. We dance, dance, danced. I was ready to quit school, to live underground, on a mountain, or next to the road. It didn't matter that everyone around us was a filthy shadow of what we had in Portland. I didn't care that this was one night out of two months. Passion Pit makes me feel good. That's all.

[photos from the flickr stream of marc.espowood]

Passion Pit - Sleepyhead
Passion Pit (MS)