At Rock The Garden 2013 this week Low (who we recently did a Counting Down on) gave a performance that, according to Minneapolis’ Star Tribune, left some audience members really confused and angry. The band decided to take a risk and played a 30-minute version of the stormy drone epic “Do You Know How To Waltz?” to the thousands attending the rainy outdoor show. Now that might sound awesome to you (it does to me), but keep in mind this was during a big outdoor show opening for Silversun Pickups and Metric. As Star Tribune writer Chris Riemenschneider explains in his review of the event, between some “disgusted” audience members and other thrilled fans, “everyone was baffled.” In a new interview though, Alan Sparhawk explained and defended the band’s performance.

“It was just kind of a weird atmosphere, people coming in during the rain, not really knowing where to go. And then we found out our set had to be a little shorter than planned, to get the schedule on track. So we decided to try to do something beautiful,” Sparkhawk explained to Riemenschneider. I highly recommend checking out the full interview here. You might remember hearing Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker perform on Swans’ album, The Seer, a band known for stretching the title track of that album out to an hour or more.

Listen to Low’s Rock The Garden performance here and tell us what you think in the comments.