Passion Pit

On Thursday, the apple store downtown hosted a teaser for Lollapalooza that featured Chairlift and Passion Pit. The store didn’t close down completely, as I was partly hoping – the signature apple store lighting was either a plus or a minus depending on how you look at it. Since the stage sat upstairs on the second floor, less-interested Chicagoans and tourists perused Ipods and Macbooks downstairs.

The lineup, Chairlift and Passion Pit, was for the most part a night and day pairing. Chairlift went on around 6:15 and played a low-energy mini set (I counted 7 or 8 songs), including “Planet Health”, the opener, and their single from the Ipod commercial “Bruises”. Caroline Polacheck, on vocals and synth, was lively, but the band’s overall sound didn’t fill much of the space. The highlight was their song “Evident Utensil”, which sounded good live – displaying some vocal interplay between Polacheck and guitarist Aaron Pfenning along with accenting Polacheck’s impressive range.

Then Passion Pit came out charged-up and full of gusto. The crowd immediately gave away what they had really come to see when the band’s mini set started a little after 7 p.m. Their presence on stage was impressive and they definitely filled the sound void with tightly wound and dynamic pop.

When the first hook from “The Reeling” began I was half-expecting apple employees to wheel in the dance-dance-revolution mats. “Little Secrets” was a personal favorite from the set: Michael Angelakos jumped around the small stage loosely to the absurdly catchy beats as the four other instrumentalists bobbed around about as much as instrumentalists can. The spectacle doubtlessly appeased the crowd, and probably did the same for Angelakos’ parents, who were in the front row.

When the band exited, the crowd chanted for an extra song or two. “Who wants to hear more from Passion Pit?” the emcee asked suggestively. Everyone went nuts. “You’ll have to wait for lollapalooza then.” Grunts and a few laughs.