Madness – pure utter, beautiful madness has occurred in the hot bed of the music world. The Echo recently hosted a Red Bull backed “Sound Select” concert featuring Mac DeMarco, Puro Instinct and Avid Dancer this past Wednesday, and I was lucky enough to even get in (the line ended up past the local dinner Brite Spot — ‘record breaking’ according to Echo staff members).

Starting the evening to the anxious crowd was Jacob Summers, aka Avid Dancer. Fairly new on the LA scene, Avid Dancer has impressed us here at team B3SCI since his early performances at the Bootleg. His first single “Stop Playing With My Heart” was released via 7″ on Hit City U.S.A. and was the crowd winner, as the already very packed Echo was grooving to the pysch-pop sound. It was the perfect opening set for the madness about to occur. Side note – Overheard in the crowd was a female who would not stop professing how much singer Jacob Summers looked/sounded like Morrissey.

Puro Instinct hit the stage next and given that their sound seemed more geared for Mac DeMarco’s set, it sounded it bit off. The production was there, but the hazy vocals, downtempo pysch feel had the crowd finding other things to occupy their time before Mac.

Once Puro Instinct took down and Mac’s team started setting up, the crowd got a bit more intense, pushing forward. The Montreal-based, wizard of things weird knew the packed house, and all of those fans waiting outside, were there for a fun time, and DeMarco had the set list to provide nothing less. The uproarious crowd became enamoured by the energy Mac and his crew brought to the stage as their brand of indie-pysch rock took over. Highlights of the show were “Ode ToViceroy”, “Freaking Out The Neighborhood”, as well as an attention-starved fan who would not stop trying to stage-dive and the crowd continually stopping her from doing it, with the band even chiming in to commenting about it. Other highlights of the night were all the other crowd surfers in the tiny Echo space, security trying to contain people, Mac shredding through “Annie”, “Robson Girl”, “Rock & Roll Nightclub” and “Still Together”. Like how I started this article, this Wednesday night in late January was pure utter, beautiful madness.

Review by Brian Litwin
Photos by Erik Voake/Red Bull Content Pool

Mac DeMarco (Facebook)