Panda Bear at the Hollywood Theatre

Review and Photos – Panda Bear at the Hollywood Theatre, Vancouver May 23 2025

The crowd was packed into the sold-out Hollywood Theatre as they waited for Noah Lennox of Panda Bear to come on stage. Lennox is most well-known as a founding member of Animal Collective. He chose the name Panda Bear as he drew pandas (his favourite animal) on the first albums he recorded. As he entered the stage, he started layering guitars and synths and built into the opening track “Take Pills” off of the 2007 album Person Pitch. The crowd’s cheers filled whatever space was left in the venue.

Psychedelic visuals were projected on a screen behind the band, featuring faces repeated on unnatural objects, trips through otherworldly environments, and uniquely shaped objects flying around with emojis, allowing the crowd to decide what it all meant. Through it all, the audience grooved and swayed to the laid-back instrumentals and Noah’s distinct reverb-heavy vocals. These sounds are wholly unique, genre-bending through experimental, neo-psychedelic and bedroom pop. Lennox took the crowd on a tour of his vast discography, including hits like “Last Night on the Jetty” from Tomboy and “Selfish Gene” from Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, using interludes to seamlessly transition from one song to another. 

This tour comes on the heels of the release of Sinister Grift, his seventh solo album. Made in close collaboration with fellow Animal Collective member Deakin, the album was inspired by Lennox’s recent divorce from his long-term partner, a theme that is evident in more emotional tracks like “Defense” and “50mg”. 

In a 2007 interview for Má Fama, Lennox highlighted his songwriting style, “I get impatient writing songs… My favorite songs are the ones where I worked really, really fast on [them], when it comes all out in like two hours or something.” Hearing these songs performed live felt akin to witnessing that raw train of thought, like the whole crowd was back in that moment with him. Lennox closed out the show with “Slow Motion” off Tomboy, with his signature experimental sounds echoing off the Hollywood Theatre and into the night.

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