Unearthed clip shows a joyous MGMT performing one of the decade's biggest hits for a tiny audience
There are only a handful of people in the crowd but they are having the time of their lives.
All the greats come from small beginnings.
Every generation has songs that help define the era. And without question, MGMT’s synthy, upbeat pop jam “Kids” helped define the early 2000s. Its playful irreverence matched the sort of unbounded optimism felt in a time just before the internet—and all its consequences—would change the world forever.
And this is why people are giddy over finding an unearthed clip of MGMT playing the hit song before it became a hit. It’s taking them right back to that simpler pre-internet time.
In the clip, which has been making the rounds across Reddit and Instagram, we see two goofy college aged dudes (Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, respectively) circa 2003 and having the time of their lives while playing the catchy tune for one of the first times, if not the first time ever.
Zero pretense, zero phones. Just good vibes.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Besides just having a revived appreciation for the band, people were really yearning for a time when cell phones didn’t dominate shared social experiences.
“This video represents the essence of life. Being in the moment, having fun and not taking yourself too seriously,” one person wrote on Instagram.
Another said, “The way I'd do anything to go back and appreciate the early 2000s more is insane.”
Another noted “This slapped me right across the face with memories I no longer thought I had.”
As any MGMT fan will tell you, fun was always the name of the game for VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser. While trying to balance out the rigidity of their formal music studies, Goldwasser sought to “write the most stupid song possible,” he told the Times.Never did he imagine that it would end up catapulting their careers.
“One moment we were being irreverent with the academic world, the next we were playing festivals, and I don’t think we understood the implications of that,” VanWyndgarden said. “On college campus we were happy to play out rock star fantasies in front of 15 people. All of a sudden we’re on Late Night with David Letterman and we’re thinking: we can’t do this any more. We were becoming the things we were making fun of.”
Even if the lyrics to "Kids" was written as a sort of parody, they do inadvertently express the pain of wanting to hold onto innocence, while, due to being human and the laws of time and whatnot, simply cannot. This universal message lying underneath its catchy hooks is what gave the song a lightning-in-a-bottle quality in the first place, and it's what makes it so impactful many years later.
We might never be able to truly go back in time, but being able to at least tap back into those bygone feelings—be it through long lost footage, forgotten mementos, or just by listening to a once beloved tune—is a pretty sweet consultation prize.