By Christina Croucher

Artist:  Passion Pit

Date / Venue:  Thursday July 25th, The Powerstation, Auckland

The 5-piece Indie Pop band Passion Pit had their fans banging their heads to every beat hit by drummerChris Hartz last night at The Powerstation.

Lucky enough to land a spot right up the front I watched frontman Michael Angelakos successfully include the audience with his dynamic constant flow of energy throughout the set. Somehow in his high energy performance he managed to pull off a rather humble appearance. Michael performed with passion and even though the vocals had to be reached for by the audience beneath the louder instrumentals he seemed to be putting himself fully into his vocals, moving around with every well hit note in his skinny leg jeans.

The band exuded a mix between an extroverted and introverted sound throughout the relatively short gig. Michael in particular hid a lot of his complex lyrics beneath an often muffled and washed out microphone setting. I know this is part of their sound but I think Passion Pit's live deliveries would benefit by a notch or two up on the vocals volume, at some points Michael was lost under the far louder drums. Michael entered with ease into his trademark falsetto a lot throughout the night, a very talented singer.

The bands songs are well written and hits with their fans. I watched the fulfilment on their faces as the band played the 2011 hit "Take a Walk", and while singing along with Michael to the catchy chorus of "Little Secrets". There was a common happy go lucky sound to a lot of the songs; maybe Michael Angelakos finds his often lost positivity through song writing. A good example was the chirpy "Carried Away". Passion Pit also showed a deeper side with the more melancholy and moving sounds of "Where I Come From", the sultry minor chords of "Cry like a Ghost" where Michael cries out to Sylvia and the pretty riffs in "To Kingdom Come".

Towards the end of the gig Passion Pit picked it up a notch and the music became hard not to move to. The eager crowd begged for an encore and Passion Pit gave it. This pop band is a good party band for indie and electro lovers and at most times was uplifting and attention grabbing with the solid beats constant throughout the night.

The band have come a long way from the Berklee College of Music and their success is sure to be continued in the Electronic loving generation we live in.