Tues. Aug. 10

  In June of last year, Paul McCartney let it be known he was a fan of the hot synth-pop band from Brooklyn, MGMT.
   Two months later, on August 5th and 6th , MGMT – singer-songwriters Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser – was playing Fenway Park, opening for Macca. 
   “It was pretty insane, definitely one of those ‘what the fuck?’ moments,” said Goldwasser, on the phone from his home base. “We met Paul McCartney and shook his hand. We’re just looking at each other, standing on stage at Fenway Park. It was hard to really take it all in and comprehend.”
   They almost turned down the gig. “It made us nervous to think about,” Goldwasser said. “Then we thought for a while and decided if we turned down that opportunity, we’d regret it for the rest of our lives.”
   MGMT comes back to Boston Tuesday Aug. 10 headlining their own show at Bank of America Pavilion with Violens opening. (The show is technically soldout; meaning you can find some, em, more expensive tickets online somewhere or outside the venue.) They’re touring behind their second – somewhat controversial CD, “Congratulations.”
   It’s gotten some heat because the band veered away from catchy synth-pop songs like “Kids,” “Electric Feel” and “Time to Pretend” – the album “Oracular Spectacular” - into more complex, layered psychedelia. That, and the band telling the press the album didn’t have hits.
    “Part of it was tongue-in-cheek,” Goldwasser said, “and part of it was us genuinely saying that for anybody who is only interested in us because of a couple of songs, they need to look a little bit deeper than that if they’re going to understand what we’re doing right now. We’re not into repeating that sort of success.”
    “We’re not saying ‘We’re artists and you need to respect us,’” he continued. “It’s not like that. It’s just that we’re making music we really like and we’re really proud of this album. We’re not gonna tell everyone it’s the best thing ever, but at the same time we like our music a lot. I think we still have a lot of time before we mature as a band.”
   VanWyngarden and Goldwasser are MGMT’s principals, founding the group in 2005 at Wesleyan University. They share the writing, with VanWyngarden writing most lyrics, singing, playing guitar and keyboards. Goldwasser sings and plays synthesizer. The group is fleshed out with guitarist James Richardson, bassist Matthew Asti and drummer Will Berman.
   “Andrew and I have been doing this for such long time,” Goldwasser said, “and we have a deep idea of what the band is. But since we brought on the other three guys, they’ve become more and more an integral part of what we’re doing. They did have a lot of creative input on the last album and the live show. They’re a big part of that s well.”
   The group has a reputation for preferring studio work to playing live.
   “We still feel more at home working in the studio,” Goldwasser said, “but we also have been growing a lot more confident in what we can do live and we have a better understanding of what it means to play a live show.”
    Now, they even talk to the crowd. A bit.
   “There’s still a lot we don’t do as far as the showmanship thing,” Goldwasser said. “I think part of it is who we are as people, and I think part of it is the content thing.” That is, they want fans to focus on the music, not on their personalities.
  “Some people are looking for us to be that,” he said. “There’s an element there, but I’m not sure we’ll ever be that. I’m never upset when a band plays their music and doesn’t say anything. When I see a band’s lead singer going on some rant or telling a story, 95 percent of the time I just want him to shut up.”
   Show starts at 7:30.  (This is an alternate version of a story that ran in the Boston Herald, www.bostonherald.com Monday.)

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