Jeff Mangum, the Chris Knox Benefit

This is a shorty post, but I wanted to bring your atten­tion to this video — last week, loads of bril­liant musical acts got together for the pur­poses of fundraising for Chris Knox. Overall, it seemed that Jeff Mangum of Neu­tral Milk Hotel was the draw of the evening, but the fundraiser itself was a huge suc­cess. Now, I know that this video is some­what awful, but the audio is decent, and on it you can hear how beau­ti­fully excited the audi­ence was — holding back an elec­tric hum for what seemed like the entire time. It was the sweetest audi­ence I’ve seen in a long time.

Along with the opener, “Oh Comely,” Mangum played “A Baby for Pree,” “In the Aero­plane Over the Sea,” “Two-Headed Boy Part II,” and “Engine,” then qui­etly exited — along with 30% of the audience.