New York City photos by J Caldwell, Chicago photos by Lizz KannenbergMerriweather Post Pavilion is their most poppy album, but Animal Collective still aren't close to a pop band. At New York City's Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, the crowd-- high on seeing a festival band at the relatively tiny 600-cap venue-- was ready to take communion in their beloved band's current good fortune.Animal Collective did new single "My Girls" near the top. The song is brilliant; it builds up methodically to a club-ready climax with Panda Bear crooning, Avey Tare yelping, and Geologist doing whatever Geologist does. It deserves its peaking "Woo!" But at the Bowery, they never fully dropped the beat. It never reached its pinnacle. This could be seen as a "fuck you" to expectation and hype and "bands that just play the songs on the album," I guess. It could also be seen as a dick move. But, having seen the band a couple times before, I should know better."My Girls" aside, though, the group played most of Merriweather faithfully, rarely spacing out into jams or yelp sessions. First-set closer "Brothersport" dropped on time and was better for it. And, apart from an extended "Fireworks"-- which could've gone on for another 15 minutes without complaint-- the tighter new songs made a lot of the looser old songs seem like preludes.And since I wasn't (directly) high at the show, I could make the following probably over-simplistic AC assessments: songs sung by Panda Bear and Avey Tare together > songs sung by just Panda Bear > songs sung by just Avey Tare. Animal Collective are a band! While Tare managed to control his antsy, primal urges more than ever on Merriweather, he's still a twiggy ball of spazz onstage. When Mr. Too Old for the Club did pirouettes on the right side of the balcony and Mr. and Mrs. Star Glow Wand "really felt it" on the left side, they seemed to be reacting to Tare exclusively. Animal Collective are not showmen, not even in the "we're so not showmen we're showmen" way. So they compensate with lights. Really bright lights. This works at massive festivals where lights need to be really bright to be effective. But at the Bowery it looked like overkill, blinding behind eyelids. Still: Too bright = too old? Perhaps. And I did leave the show a bit discombobulated, but not for the reasons I had hoped.Several others also left the Bowery not-quite-satisfied. The difference? They didn't even get in. Apparently, some jackass sold a bunch of phony e-tickets to hapless Craigslisters who were told to exit when their "tix" didn't scan. A shame, for sure. But not unheard of. What's novel though, is that what seems to be the scammer's name was on all the fakes. And now his info is all over the internet. Flaming dogshits all around.More photos from the Bowery Ballroom show, plus bonus photos from Animal Collective's show at the Metro in Chicago on January 22, below.read more