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Panda Bear was not jumping around stage yelling "primal shouts." That would be Avey Tare. Panda Bear was on the keyboard on the right side.

Let me state up front I can't stand Animal Collective. Out of all their stuff, I only like "Who Could Win A Rabbit" and "Grass", which are probably their 2 most pop-centric and accessible songs. They represent most of what I can't stand about the pretentiousness and emptiness of the indie rock movement.

That being said, they put on a hell of a show. I can't say they won me over, but you must admit they know how to construct a set. The light show was mesmerizing, coupled with the ethereal harmonies and pulsating rhythms. They put on a great performance for their fans, and kept everyone else captivated and entertained.

Animal Collective has some crossover appeal, so noise and pop purists tend to hate the band.

It's too bad that your idea of fun is so rigid. Again, the pop purists hate the parts of the music you've labeled "no fun" as much as the noise purists scorn the sometimes traditional melodic structures. As a fan of music, I enjoy both.

I am an admitted fan, and I also smoke lots of grass. Listening to AC and bud smoking also have crossover appeal, as one sniff Saturday night should've demonstrated.

Finally, if "bastard stepchild" is the most insulting moniker you can muster, it demonstrates that you've retained strong traditionalist cultural ties. AC and those don't go well together.

let me say something. AC on saturday night was incredible but far too short. If you listen to them often you would have noticed how amazing it was for them to open up with chocolate girl, which is on spirit they're gone, they've vanished, an LP with Only Avey Tare and Panda Bear. To even play Comfy in Nauitica was mind blowing. 99% of the audience was to busy politely listening and focusing on the unimportant things. EX: Their lights. The aren't a band that jumps around on stage and act dumb. They drone into their own music and do what they do best. The only way to see AC live is to just dance and listen, have your eyes close if you need to. Seeing them live and listening to their recordings are two major different things. I have seen them 3 times this past year and have not been disappointed one time. One more thing. They use samplers, which are noises they create put onto the sampler and they have to be on time and know what they are doing to make it sound good, its not just backtracking music with guitar and screaming over it. That's just ridiculous.

" There's no harmony, no melody, and it's no fun."

I disagree on all accounts.
And Comfy in Nautica was a really cool surprise.

Of course critics are entitled to their opinions, but to suggest that Animal Collective are "the only noise rock/pop band on the planet" is just hugely false. Even catching MTV2 at the right time or listening to some of the employee picks at Borders would enlighten you to that. That's like me saying Bon Jovi is the only rock band on the planet just because it's the only one I've ever heard. That would make me pretty ignorant on the topic and probably unqualified to write a criticism of one of their performances.
To say that there was "no harmony, no melody" is also blatantly untrue. I was there and their set was highly melodic and they frequently sang and played harmonies. Actually, a surprising amount I'd say as someone who's seen them a handful of times over the years. And they remained refined and musical the entire set, never really going into unstructured improv the way "taking noise rock to it's unlistenable worst" suggests. Their songs even flowed and transformed into one another for the most part, so there were no noisy freakouts the way I've seen before. That would be hard to do without a tremendous amount of skill and the detailed composition of a set using several elements of their songs, rather than just playing songs one after another. It seemed like they distilled the set into a fluid collage of new and old material that covered a ton of range. Surely more range than any other Pitchfork set I saw.
Even though you were quoting someone else, you insinuate they had some karaoke pre-recorded backing track. Wrong again. They are samples, played live and woven together by the ensemble as we watched, all while accompanying it with keys, percussion, guitars, vocals, and real-time effects. Quite a lot of dexterity for three men, no? I've seen Radiohead do the same thing. Heard of them? They do a "bastard stepchild of emo, electronica and indie rock" kind of thing, so it may not be for you.
Even if it was all "noise or drone or grind or whatever you want to call it" to you, I still don't see why you bothered reviewing it with such erroneous details. I'd admire a critic who hated hiphop and reviewed Ghostface by simply saying "I hate hiphop and Ghostface does hiphop" a lot more than someone wasting time explaining why he's disappointed with how hiphop Ghostface's set was. Maybe the crowds, rain, heat, expense, lack of water at the handwashing stations outside the outrageously gross latrines, adolescents dancing in and throwing mud, the Metro Red Line being shut down, and an understandable music overdose had finally gotten to you and you just needed to blow off some steam, but maybe you should brethe deep and count to 10 before writing a review next time.
But yeah, the lights were pretty cool.