Poor old Passion Pit. They came to Heaven the much-hyped makers of cerebral electronica; they leave it cursing a hellish sound for a performance that raises more questions than it answers.

The first of these is whether Michael Angelakos’s vocal can cut it live. The piercing focal point of the Massachusetts band’s excellent debut, Manners, was inaudible for the majority of last night’s set. How frustrating it was to hear only snippets of his sensitive lyrics as his voice was lost under a sea of swirling synths, booming beats and a bass that kept feeding back.

To make matters worse, just as things were starting to groove on the funky Little Secrets, disaster struck: the computer, which the band rely on for their various loops and samples, decided to break down.

Credit to the five-piece for not doing the same. Under similar circumstances, it’s hard to imagine Liam Gallagher managing Angelakos’s measured response: “It seems our computer’s skipped — do you mind if we start this song again?”

The crowd didn’t mind at all. They danced, cheered and sang for the entirety of the hour-long show, stubbornly refusing to desert a band for whom they have such high hopes.

Passion Pit might have rewarded their loyalty by engaging with them a little more — call me old-fashioned but still I like a frontman to face his audience. Side on to the stage and hunched over his keyboard, Angelakos left us searching for a
focal point.

If they nail next week’s performance at the Roundhouse, we’ll forgive these crimes of Passion. For now, though, the jury is still out on a band yet to deliver on stage what they promise on stereo.