Note: we would like to extend our apologies to opener Dustin Wong, whom we could not see because of the incredibly early start time for this show. Click that link and give him a listen to make us all feel better. 

The last time I saw David Portner masquerading as Avey Tare, I was sweaty and burnt out before he even got onstage. It was March 7, 2013 at the House of Blues, and he and the rest of Animal Collective were watching Dan Deacon from backstage.

Dan Deacon, meanwhile, was doing this.

Animal Collective was, for all intents and purposes, upstaged. Completely and totally upstaged.

It was especially shocking considering AC actually sounded pretty good that night. The material from Centipede Hz made for lots of pretty lights and sonic fuckabouts from the foursome, and older numbers like “Brother Sport” brought out the bounce when called upon. But the band was bouncing like four contractually obligated “too cool to play this shit anymore” stiffs.

At least, it seemed like that after witnessing Dan Deacon work his performance art magic like a chubby embodiment of Have Fun Or Else, You Fuckers. He controlled the crowd like a circus ringleader. He was a living example of what it means to lose your goddamn shit and it didn’t matter that he was opening. There were loud, loud drums. There were loud, loud squeals and loud, loud arpeggiators and loud, loud bass thumps from God. There were glowing skulls. There was sheer joy.

Enter Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks, April 26, 2014 at Brighton Music Hall. There were loud, loud drums. There were squeals and arpeggiators and bass thumps from God. And there were many, many glowing skulls. There was, thank goodness, joy. And it was the best performance from Avey Tare I’ve ever seen.

Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks also include Angel Deradoorian (of Dirty Projectors) and Jeremy Hyman (of Ponytail), but if you wanted some faceless studio musicians to wordlessly back up Avey Tare, you came to the wrong show.

Deradoorian controlled those aforementioned bass thumps from God via an innocent-looking keyboard setup, and chimed in with some great harmonies when called upon. In a show almost completely devoid of stage banter, she also fielded much of the shouted praise from the crowd with “thank you”s and “that’s cool”s. Fantastic stuff from a fantastic musician in her own right.

Jeremy Hyman commits homicide on those drums. It’s like Avey Tare wiretapped me after the aforementioned Dan Deacon set and then went on some sort of alt-rock-human-trafficking-musican Craigslist and picked this guy from a private trophy case. “Blind Babe” made me shift to a place farther back in the crowd to get a better look, and I don’t do that often.

Extended jams could have been the worst part of this show. If you know the jams at these shoegaze-y things, then you know it. If you don’t, it’s just an excuse to go get another drink. But when Avey Tare gets Hyman to do it, it’s a must-see performance. No other words need to be said. Primal music needs at least one member to be primal, and Hyman does that better than anyone in AC. Conclusion: Jeremy Hyman is a goddamn national treasure.

Avey Tare himself was hampered with some sort of vocal illness, and seemed to forget some of his parts. But despite the low lighting, most of his material for this project material is brighter, jumpier, and just plain more fun to bop around to. He still has the same hazy guitar histrionics perfected from years of playing with AC, but the vocals really took the spotlight that night. His famous shrieks are still in full force (I don’t think he really needs that much reverb), which obviously gives off some more  coveted energy.

That said, his songwriting and singing style without Animal Collective is still taking awhile to grow on me, even days after the show. Some tracks like “That It Won’t Grow” didn’t suffer one bit. But other tracks definitely did suffer, which I’m attributing to the illness for now.

A short set still had great times for this reviewer. Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks took the best parts of Animal Collective-esque songwriting and noise, and gave them a visual, primal element that was sorely needed. All we need now is to get out of this whole skull obsession.