Ariel Pink loses his blush at Regent Theater

Kevin Bronson on November 30th, 2014

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Ariel Pink’s “Pom Pom” ranks as one of the most stylistically adventurous, provocative and out-and-out fun albums of 2014.

Precious little of that was on display Friday night as the 36-year-old auteur, born Ariel Rosenberg, gave a muddled performance in front of a full house at downtown’s Regent Theater.

||| Photos by Carl Pocket, courtesy of Spaceland Presents

The songwriter’s lovingly warped take on ’60s and ’70s psychedelia was played out with a six-piece band – plus backing tracks, really? – in front of colorful but
largely static projections that held all the visual excitement of a PowerPoint presentation. “Here’s What I Saw in a Dream in 1971,” or something like that. It left Pink and his players mostly in the shadows, so no matter how much energy the frontman injected into the performance (and it was plenty), much of it was lost on all but the devoted cadre of singers-along in the front middle of the room.

Notably, Pink has put his Haunted Graffiti days behind him. He said as much in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published a week ago, calling “Pom Pom,” released under the moniker Ariel Pink, “my first real record.” And indeed, there was no trace of the music from the two Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti albums he released for 4AD in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

The hour-plus show featured 16 of the 17 songs from his new 67-minute opus. L.A.-based French singer SoKo, who has an opus of her own on the way early next year, guested on the fun romp “Negativ Ed” – Pink had duetted with SoKo on her 2013 song “Monster Love.” Although Pink’s single “Put Your Number in My Phone,” played 25 minutes in the show, was a misdial, the main set-enders “Picture Me Gone” and “Exile on Frog Street” found everybody on the same page.

The blissful “Dayzed Inn Daydreams” capped a four-song encore that included the jokey “Sexual Athletics,” during which Pink professes to be waiting for “my Alice in Wonderland to come knock upon my door.” There were too few moments we were pulled down the rabbit hole on Friday.