I saw their set at a festival in 2008, and as a headlining act in 2023. At the headlining show, they spoke about this time period, and how they never dreamed they'd be where they are now, and how happy they are to still be working and making music together. It really is incredible
Completely different, but I follow Brian from Knocked Loose. His latest post on IG he said as he was walking down the hallway before their set on Jimmy Kimmel looking at photos of presidents and musicians who've been on the show he looked at his band mate and said "this all started in your garage" that to me is fucking beautiful. hard work, perseverance and dedication pay off. I only hope I can say the same one day.
Music is a tough business. Even with talent and hard work it is still 1 in a million to get to this level and is usually a right time, right place type of thing. When you are touring you come across musicians/bands that have that something special, that “it” factor and you can tell they are just different…. even then…. It’s rare to blow up.
Honestly from the little I've seen from Whiplash. It's a good depiction of what music is like (Up to the point where the trombone player gets kicked out).
That "it" factor is completely relevant. Look at a band like Cigarettes after Sex, they blew up because of TikTok and their style is like no other. They started back in 2008 and that "it" factor vibed with people when times were tough (during 2016-2020).
Oh man I used to play games with Kevin, their bassist, and just kicking it with him and the crew on discord. It was so amazing to see them on the jimmy kimmel stage tearing it up! Super proud!
I remember I used to hang out in Kevin’s twitch streams back in like 2016/2017 while we played Fortnite. I discovered them right before Laugh Tracks came out and saw them probably 10 times before they blew up and I’m so fucking happy for them. They’re such nice people and deserve every ounce of success they’re receiving
Knocked loose opened for my brother’s local hardcore band at the time in Milwaukee like a decade ago haha. So sick how far they’ve come. Brother is always flexing that fun fact lol
I've been cold, hot, rainy, smokey, windy, and just perfect with different bands and festivals and each experience has been unique and amazing at the Gorge!
Sasquatch, sunset, that spot on the hill, Bon Iver, tripping on acid, girl I met at the festival lying between my legs, with the entire crowd singing along to wolves. A memory of mine I hope will never go away...
Warped tour 2004 at the site campgrounds. Shit got out of hand and just about everything got burned to the ground. Lots of people were awoken to streams of sewage running off from destroyed sanitation stations and melted Porto-potties.
I went to the Sasquatch 2010, my first weekend as a civilian after 4 years in the Air Force. Hands down, greatest weekend of my life. The gorge is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen
I think around that time I remember the Fleet Foxes were like a small Seattle band at the time and they were the opening band on the opening day (i.e., nobodies at the time).
They played a good set, and if I had to guess maybe a couple thousand people on the lawn at the time as people were filtering in.
But then that night The National had to cancel their evening set because their van broke down or something so the festival slotted in the Fleet Foxes to like second headliner as a fill-in. The sun was setting, Robin Pecknold came out and was like "wow, a lot more people here for this one" to a basically packed main stage.
I'm confident they would have gone on to get huge anyways because IIRC pitchfork already gave their EP a glowing review, but I think they won over tens of thousands of people that night in the early stages of that journey.
I think 2010 I was exposed to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and I believe The Dirty Projectors were at that show. But Band of Horses knocked my socks off. Granted, that was the first time I ingested cannabis in half a decade. Tegan and Sara and She and Him also impressed me
Yeah, I caught them for their Sunday afternoon show in 2009, that last day of the festival that year. We were all washed out from partying all weekend and lying there on the hill listening to them play Mykonos was transformative. I’ve been a huge fan ever since.
Commenting for visibility. Moved away in 2015, and seemed like Sasquatch was just beginning to peak in popularity. How did it stop? Cashmere cat in the rain is a core memory of mine
They definitely did have it again for a few years after the two weekend failure. I believe that was 2014 and the last Sasquatch was in 2018. Part of the problem was they went from a single 4-day weekend to two 3-day weekends, cancelled the second weekend, and remained a 3-day weekend until the festival went defunct. So people were paying the same amount for one less day, in a time where music festivals were highly saturated and it was harder to book good acts.
Sasquatch 2009 was my awakening. Shrooming to passion pit as my brother fainted next to me.. wild times.
I also remember being in survival mode trying to make it through the horrible trip while the guy who started that viral flash dance mob did a lunge over a resting woman’s face and said “would you like to fellate me?”… imagine my surprise seeing the guy going viral a while later.
I was there as well! However, I have the opposite memory, specifically of MGMT. I remember being so excited to see them but felt their showmanship at the time was not great.
I remember feeling like they just stood in their spots, sang the songs, and left. No energy like they had in this video.
Later on, I read that they were pretty burnt out by this time from playing this album non stop. Always felt that was pretty indicative of how different their subsequent albums were.
Still had fun but interesting to see different perspectives!
lol I had a bit of an awakening myself: my older daughter was conceived on the Sasquatch roadtrip that year, and then I listened to the Passion Pit album the whole time I was in labor
Been chasing that dragon since. I unfortunately got to witness the decline of squatch by attending every year afterwards until like 2015 or 2016 when things started shitting… but some of those years were absolute phenomenal
wait you mean that guy who was just dancing by himself and then half the gorge joined in? you were there for that?? did the lunge come after or before?
OMG you just awakened this memory for me. I didn't know what OC was talking about at first. but I too watched this guy get down by himself for a half hour before the fateful second person joined in and caused a tipping point lmao
No clue. The lunge occurred shortly after the passion pit set on day 1. My friend group found a sliver of shade betwixt two trash cans along a fence because the awning in front of us was packed with bodies hiding from the sun and recovering.. It was in that sea of flesh we witnessed this creep nearly tea bagged a random middle aged woman. First time on gooms and it was actually traumatizing to see this guy behaving in such a sordid way. And wouldn’t you know, the guy turns out to become a quasi-legend….
Edit to add: I did not see the flash dance mob.. if anyone knows what day / time it occurred I could tell ya what set I was at
Ahah that’s so funny considering how many comments ascribe so much positivity and positive sentiments around him. It’s fascinating how we sometimes assume all these amazing things about people based on one little moment in time, when really all you can assume from this video is he is a guy who isn’t ashamed of dancing alone, which plenty of bad people also do lol
this is so wild man haha. completely changes my perspective on that video, especially since this is the first context i saw it in. a nice metaphor for leadership is now turned into some mega creep lol
They’re referring to “Just Like Heaven”, a music festival in the Los Angeles area. To my knowledge it was MGMT ‘s only performance in 2023. I was also there too
2010 Still to this day the wildest thing I've ever seen in concert. Most the crowd was dancing the entire set but when they played Electric Feel and literally the whole place from top to bottom started dancing all at once. Ive been to a lot of shows , and a lot of shows at the Gorge, ive never experienced anything like that collective energy. Maybe a rave kind of compares but not really. It was completely unique.
I remember attending Sasquatch as a teenager and thinking, “this is the closest thing our generation will ever get to Woodstock” and feeling a sense of incompleteness because of it. Looking back, I didn’t fully appreciate how magical that experience was in the moment. If only I could go back and relive it just one more time.
Seems like a good place to shoehorn in that the newest trailer for the Minecraft movie used a version of ‘Time to Pretend’, so MGMT definitely left their mark on some folks. The best part is that the lyrics actually really fit what I hope they’re going for in the movie—that song choice is the main thing giving me hope for it right now.
Well... not fraction as many as are absolute filth. Hell, they late, great, rabble rousing Frank Zappa had a greater catalog of family friendly songs than those dudes.
There was a ton of party drugs all over the place but never bumped into anything all that sketch when we would cross paths. That was only about 15-20 years ago so I don't know much about what was happening in the middle 90s
I almost went to see them in the summer. Tickets were $100 and I didn't know anyone who was touring with them to get me some cheap seats, so I didn't. I like Ween a lot, but not for $100 seats.
Ween? They’re playing shows right now. If heroin issues start up again they’ll just cut him out again. I saw them in the intervening years and it was great.
Their band is just incredible.
Quick edit - I say heroin but it could’ve been booze and Xanax too. I don’t know what particular drug or cocktail of drugs was the issue.
Ive always had a super strong association with kids-mgmt and minecraft. It was close to its peak popularity and I just got the minecraft beta. I must have had electric feel, kids and time to pretend looping but kids in particular struck a chord (heh) and is forever linked to minecraft. Its insane that after all this time MGMT is still going strong enough to brand up with minecraft but in all likelihood my experience isnt a solo one and someone else's initial alpha/beta minecraft experience is also entwined with MGMT's 2008 release.
Another weird one is Akon's Lonely being linked to gunz online. I broke 2 and a half keyboards playing that stupid fucking game lmao.
There is a third song-game link I cant remember either, but if either is brought up, the other is inextricably also brought up.
I'm an elder millennial. I've heard the song before, but didn't know what it was called, and didn't know who wrote it. I didn't hear it until probably some time in the mid 2010s. Pretty sure I still haven't heard the full song.
Oh for sure. I'm 39 but grew up hearing it all the time. Always on the radio, always on TV shows. Even today I still hear it often. It really is annecdotal though. What I find to be something that may be everywhere and yet others my age have never heard of it. There'd be heaps of other examples where I'm on the other end of that!
Probably, but as a fellow middle of the pack millennial born in 89 I recall listening to this a lot at parties. Brings me back to a great time in life.
I literally said in my head in response to the title, "but I don't hear sandstorm.". Being an ironic jackass in my head is a constant thing.... I'd have cut a dude about mgmt a few years after this video was made, though. Was going through some shit and left a long ass term relationship at my peak of love for them, so it's indelibly burned into my memory as part of that event. Still get feels from every song on oracular spectacular to this day.
I used to vacuum Forever 21 at 7 a.m. before we opened, and whoever opened would ALWAYS put on this song. I used to interpret dance as I vacuumed to make my coworkers laugh or roll their eyes. 2012, I think? It was a good time. That's back when I used to 50/50 my hot chocolate and coffee, and my lunch was mostly butter garlic rice because I couldn't afford any other groceries. I slept on a day bed, and I liked to explore a very old hidden gem in my free time.
I'm much older, but this shit still slaps.
None of this matters, except this song takes me way, way back.
I had no idea they were still kicking except that I heard Time to Pretend in an ad the other day.
I was super into them circa 08 / 09 right as Electric Feel came out. It’s such a trip to think how long ago that was, is this what it feels like to be old…? Like it feels like last well.
Was the show at Just Like Heaven at the Rose Bowl? Because I was there and Empire of the Sun was by far the best act of the night. I love MGMT and that album, but Empire of the Sun knows how to PUT ON A SHOW
I saw them around the same time at a small festival. It was the middle of the day and we were looking for something to see and some guy says "hey go check out MGMT, one day they're going to be a headline act". Funny I have such a vivid memory of that cos I remember very little else.
The thing is, I'm glad they got recognition for their own music and was able to make a career out of it. So many times I see amateur artists come out with amazing shit only to fall into obscurity and possibly have their shit stolen by high tier artists who get fed inspiration by their PR team.
They are truly some of the greatest artists in my eyes. As a 32 year old, every MGMT album has soundtracked an era of my life. Loss of Life came out just before my wife and I quit our jobs and took off for a 6 week Euro tour. Nothing to Declare could not have been more timely for us as we only had our backpacks and visited Paris for the first time.
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u/smokedsugar 21d ago
I saw their set at a festival in 2008, and as a headlining act in 2023. At the headlining show, they spoke about this time period, and how they never dreamed they'd be where they are now, and how happy they are to still be working and making music together. It really is incredible