By the time the Brooklyn-based quintet MGMT dropped 2010’s Congratulations, expectations from both fans and critics were running at an all-time high and just begging to be crushed. The follow-up to their flawlessly produced, aurally lush 2007 major label debut, Oracular Spectacular, could never match the retro rock and psyche pop perfection of its predecessor. [All photos by Phil Bardi.]

And while Congratulations is a perfectly great record, people were quick to bitch about its lack of pop hooks, its experimental tendencies, its seeming lack of earnestness … or is it over-earnest? What these same people tend to forget is the musicians of MGMT are new to all this, were pretty damn green when they wrote the songs on Oracular Spectacular, and are still growing into their creativity and adjusting to the demands of being professional recording artists and touring musicians.

You could tell the band still hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it this past Wednesday night at Ruth Eckerd Hall* in Clearwater, where MGMT made their first-ever stop in the Bay and drew the most youthful, stylish, openly excited group of hipster music fans I’d ever seen to the place.

The hall was mostly full when the lights dimmed and everyone jumped to their feet, several letting loose fervent shrieks as the musicians filtered onto the stage, their anticlimactic entrance followed by the slow-building, soft-hitting “Someone’s Missing,” which eventually speeds up into a ’70s-flavored groove. Not the most exciting way to kick off a show, and the crowd didn’t really start getting down until three songs deep into it, when they launched into "Time to Pretend." And that’s when the whole place kind of freaked out and for the most part, never really stopped freaking out until the show's close.

This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2010.