Mohawk’s Sunday sell-out played witness to an increasingly endangered species: a Caribou club show. Canadian electronic composer Dan Snaith and his live threepiece tours consistently, but they mostly appear at festivals. Levitation’s cancellation meant that locals got to experience giant sounds tailor-made for vast fields in a contained space.
The brevity of the early-evening set – right at the hour mark – reflected its festival pedigree, but Caribou’s pop-up Levitation show, which helped close out the weekend, packed a punch. Dressed all in white, Snaith and company breathed life into what are primarily machine-driven beats. The minimalistic drum machine on “Leave House” became a percussive showcase, while the synth repetition of “Mars” was transformed by guitar flourishes into a full-out jam.
When “Odessa,” perhaps the most stage-ready song in Snaith’s four-album catalog, shrieked to life, crowd energy spiked palpably. Snaith capitalized, building on the falling, baroque-style electronic quips. He punctuated everything with even more drumming, riding out the rich textures of various internal song breakdowns through an extra minute or so.
Caribou, through no mission of its own – and not at all surprisingly – proved they can shut down a club show just as easy as they can a faceless crush of festivalgoers. And thanks to a broken-play weekend, Levitation hopefuls got to experience it. Keep on the sunny (or rainy) side, y’all.
This article appears in May 6 • 2016 and April 29 • 2016.