Months ago, I was looking to see if there were any good shows during our winter break in Boston. Growing up outside of Boston gave me many opportunities throughout high school to catch great concerts in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville; so, any time that I’m home, I try to see a show or two if I can.  By some miracle, Passion Pit, based in Boston, were playing a show the last week I was home and the tickets were only $25. I immediately bought them; after missing out on their last concert in Boston (with Phoenix and Spoon, reviewed HERE), which sold out the first day, I knew I had to act fast.

There was a lot of excitement leading up to the show—it was like the cherry on top of my winter vacation. I’ve been listening to Passion Pit for a few months now and recently they’ve become extremely popular, so I knew there would be a lot of interest and a lot of different people at the concert.

This was the second time I’d been to a concert at the venue House of Blues, the first being Animal Collective last May. I grew up with the Avalon being my Lansdowne street concert venue, but really have grown to appreciate what House of Blues has become. It’s a big space with two balconies, both with views of the stage.

We arrived half way through the first opener: Dirty Dishes. We were still getting settled but the crowd didn’t seem very receptive to their sound. But, they played a short set and soon the second opening band, Magic Magic, took the stage.

Magic Magic was named the best new band in Massachusetts in 2009 by the Boston Phoenix, and they definitely were fun to watch. More engaging than Dirty Dishes, their upbeat but smart not-too-pop-y style got the crowd (who was eagerly and perhaps exclusively awaiting their beloved Passion Pit) to start moving and dancing. While listening to Magic Magic, it was remarkable how many different trends from this year and older could be identified in their sound. They had elements of Fleet Foxes, some vocals reminiscent of Vampire Weekend, and even some instrumental interludes that really made me think of Built to Spill. Their set was really great and enjoyed by the crowd; I’ve since been listening to their music since the show online via their myspace (myspace.com/magicmagicband).

The set up time between Magic Magic and Passion Pit seemed almost unbelievable. Although they did play “Sie Liebt Dich,” a German version of the Beatles song “She Loves Me,” a guilty pleasure favorite song of mine, over the speakers while we waited, the crowd was getting really antsy. The assortment of people was interesting, though; I attribute this largely to the intense rate at which Passion Pit became popular over the past few months. They’ve reached a broad range of people; everyone from bros to businessmen to hipsters to the older, NPR crowd were represented.

Passion Pit’s stage set-up had about six or seven dark squares standing in an arc over their instruments; once they began playing the squares lit up as if they were lite brites, and throughout their performance were animated to match up with the music being played, like the visualizer settings on iTunes.

There’s something to be said for a concert where everyone in the venue is so utterly invested, so excited to see a band perform. At least for me, it makes a show that much better. And I would say that happened with Passion Pit. They were very happy to be in Boston, and Boston was very happy to have them.

Highlights of their set included Swimming in the Flood (which, they told us afterwards, was the first time they’d played it live), Let Your Love Grow Tall, and Little Secrets.  I have to say that I was slightly skeptical of how Passion Pit would be live– whether lead singer Michael Angelakos would be able to sustain his falsetto through a headlining set, and whether their small repertoire would box them into a format exactly like their album Manners. I shouldn’t have had doubts. Their performance was great throughout; everyone: the bros, the biddies, the NPR thirtysomethings and the hipsters were all dancing together.

When they left the stage however, they hadn’t played their first big hit, Sleepyhead. We all eagerly applauded, waiting for the encore and Sleepyhead. When they came back onstage, they didn’t immediately play it, though. And when the second song came up, it was surprising to hear Angelakos tell the crowd “this is a song we didn’t write.”

When a familiar-but-hard-to-identify introduction began, everyone was trying so hard to figure out what Passion Pit had decided to cover. What it was, we soon found, was Dreams, originally by the Cranberries. An unlikely song to be covered by a band like Passion Pit, or so I thought, Dreams may have been my favorite song performed all night. Something about it was just so fun; everyone was beaming and dancing and singing along, which was a perfect lead-in to their final song of the night, finally Sleepyhead.

All in all, the show was a pleasant surprise that got me and the many other fans moving and laughing and screaming along every word. If you’re a fan, I highly recommend seeing Passion Pit if you get the chance, and even if you’re not, it will get you dancing and wishing you knew every single word to every single song.

-Nora Brouder

Nora Brouder is the host of Fitz and Dizzyspells, Tuesdays at 12-2 AM Eastern Time on WRBC.

With just 16 days remaining in 2009, and the music calendar winding down, its time to look back at the year in music as I provide you with my picks for the 10 best songs of the year.

Usually when you are awakened three hours before the alarm goes off, it’s a sign that you might be having a bad day. However, when I received such a call one morning in October while on a trip in San Francisco, the opposite was true.

The call alerted me to the lineup of the annual Miracle on Tremont Street sponsored by Boston’s WFNX, which featured three of my favorite indie rock acts, in concert order, Passion Pit, Phoenix and Spoon, and the concert was to be held in Boston’s historic Orpheum Theater.

With some luck my friends and I were able to procure some tickets to this explosion of semi-independent musicians. After several months of anticipation, December 4 finally arrived and down to Boston we went.

PASSION PIT (♥♥♥)

We arrived just as local favorites Passion Pit were taking the stage. To be honest, I was expecting much more from the Cambridge natives. Their set seemed marred by the fact that they were out of practice in being an opening act. That being said, it was a good set and got the crowd warmed up for the night. Although the Orpheum is a seated venue, everyone in attendance was on their feet and trying as best they can to get a bit of dancing in, which was a bit complicated.

Their set took the basic form of their 2009 release Manners, and I kind of felt like they could have plugged in an iPod with their album and played it really loudly to get the same basic effect.

Here is a section of when they played their popular single “Sleepyhead”

PHOENIX (♥♥♥♥♥)

I have been fortunate to have seen many epic shows in my life, but Phoenix’s performance at The Miracle on Tremont Street was about as close to a perfect concert experience as I could possibly imagine. The French band began with the single of their most recent release Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, “Lisztomania” and followed it up with hit after hit from the breadth of their discography. The crowd was, in my opinion, there to see Phoenix and the mood was jubilant and celebratory. Every song built off of the momentum of the last and the interplay between performer and audience member was unparalleled. They closed with an absolutely epic version of “1901,” which bled into a pseudo-encore with an additional three or so minutes tacked on to what was already a really original reworking of the track.

If you can see Phoenix now, do it. You will not be disappointed. In the meantime, enjoy this video of them playing “Lasso” at the Miracle on Tremont Street

SPOON (♥♥♥♥)

At long last, Spoon took the stage and played a set that was decidedly different from the previous two bands. They opted to play a show that I thought was geared more towards their most devout fans than just the errant listener that thought Ga Ga Ga Ga was a fun album to listen to once or twice a month. Their set featured a lot of slow tempo deep album cuts, and the audience, who had been going wild for Phoenix only moments earlier was much more subdued, not really sure how to react to the music in front of them.

That being said, as a pretty big fan of Spoon when I was a Senior in high school, I thought their set was a good sampling of the variety of Spoons repertoire and a good concert over all. However, if I had been the concert’s promoter, I would have probably not even booked Spoon, it seemed extraneous and the juxtaposition between the sets of Passion Pit and Phoenix to that of Spoon was just too great.It was not until their last song of their encore, the ever-popular “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb,” that the audience really got into their set, which was unfortunate considering the quality of the performance overall.

Here is a section of “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb:”

-Doug Ray

Doug Ray is the co-host of Saltimbocca & Escargot, Sundays at 8-10 PM Eastern Time on WRBC.