2. Animal Collective
The Magical X-Factor A higher state of consciousness. When some people watch Animal Collective live, they shrug and walk away to get some chips. Of those that remain there's no middle ground. Some are so angered and incensed by the experience that they'll think nothing of screaming at the stage that they're the worst band they've ever seen. At the other end of the spectrum, though, you'll find people like me. We get drawn into their strange, colourful and often-terrifying world so deeply that it's unlikely we'll ever leave and we'll never forget our first time. Animal Collective will likely never perform a greatest hits set nor can you even depend on them to play the songs you love in anything approaching a recognisable form. But the moment you get past the idea that their live performances aren't really like those of other bands, you'll never look back. I've never been one for mind or mood altering substances, but I'll swear that I've sometimes felt as though I've achieved a higher state of consciousness whilst watching Animal Collective. They have a perfect grasp of melody, texture, colour, repetition and volume and they know how to use each factor to its maximum psychedelic advantage. So you'll get hypnotic undulating drones at the sort of volumes that can be
felt as well as
heard as part of a seamless mix of sound in which individual songs blend and melt into one another like a glorious aural lava lamp. Sometime's it's jarring, often it's nauseating, but most of the time it's beautiful. Just beautiful. Animal Collective are
the psychedelic experience for the 21st century, and watching them in 2013 must be what it was like to watch Pink Floyd in 1967; to follow the Grateful Dead on a stoned tour across America; to see Spacemen 3 play one chord over and over again as you allow your jazz cigarette to burn down to the filter, unsmoked.
1. Radiohead
The Magical X-Factor Everything you ever wanted from music. Or at least that's how they make me feel. Only five years ago, I wouldn't have included Radiohead on this list. Of course, they have always been a phenomenal live band, but up until the In Rainbows tour, their setlists have felt so steeped in their nineties roots as to make them feel decidedly 20th century. Even with Kid A and Amnesiac material, quintessentially nineties songs like My Iron Lung were never far away. They were by no means bad songs, and they were about as far away as you could possibly get from being bad shows but was this a band for the 21st century or the continued efforts of nineties giants who weren't quite ready to relinquish their title? But then came The King of Limbs an album of obscenely complex late-night listening and with it must have come the realisation that such polyrhythms and arrangements would be quite impossible to replicate live as a five-piece. So they drafted in sometime Portishead drummer Clive Deamer for help, and even let their freshly augmented line-up loose on some of the more head-scratching moments from their back catalogue. And then, all of a sudden, Radiohead became the best live band on the planet. Their live sound is now so intricate and dense that you can lose yourself completely in their labyrinthine arrangements - taking in every meticulously crafted nuance of their sound coming to the conclusion that
this music is perfect. There is absolutely nothing you could add to it to make it any better, yet taking anything away would make it significantly worse. And all it takes to silence those sniffly critics who insist that their sound is cold and impersonal is the majestic power of
Giving Up The Ghost. Newer songs like Bloom and Morning Mr. Magpie take on an all-encompassing warmth that's lacking on their recorded versions; whilst such incredible moments from their back catalogue as Nude, Weird Fishes, The Pyramid Song and Reckoner have now become anthems. But, ever the gentlemen, they'll still throw in the odd Paranoid Android, Karma Police or Street Spirit; and they'll generally end their shows with a roof-raising Idioteque. It does nothing, of course, to quell the cries of those that moan that they don't play guitars any more, but those people stopped going to Radiohead gigs years ago. In their place are the devoted, the obsessional and, with every passing show, the freshly devoted and the freshly obsessional. Whilst their mercurial live shows have always acted as confirmation that life is beautiful, Radiohead's modus operandi used to be to take their best-known songs and play them
louder. Now, though, they're so good at what they do that for me the work of any other act currently operating simply pales in comparison. Like they have many times before, Radiohead have achieved perfection yet it still seems as though they can only get better. But enough from me. Who do you think are the best live acts of the 21st century?