With music that's unquestionably sleepy and droning in parts, Belgian-Australian electro-pop star Gotye wisely brought along a vibrant and impressively synchronized giant video backdrops for his sold-out Twin Cities debut Wednesday at Epic nightclub. Volcanoes blew along to the hard-grooving opener "Eyes Wide Open," and blood-red graphic-novel style animation accompanied the Police-like rocker "Easy Way Out." It was a dazzling, hip visual display that rivaled the Gorillaz tour in visual display. It sounded a lot like Damon Albarn's cartoony band a few times, too, especially in the robotic slow-funk dance number "State of the Art."

Too bad half the crowd couldn't actually see the stage. As has always been the case for packed shows at the club formerly known as the Quest and Gland Slam, sightlines were abysmal. While its new neighbor/competitor the Brick is still catching heat over its disputed capacity – enough for fun.'s April 13 show to be moved to Myth in Maplewood – Epic's shortcomings were reiterated Wednesday, also including poor acoustics. Like fun., Gotye's show was also moved out of the Varsity Theater as soon as his hit started taking off toward Billboard's top 10. Somebody should tell these budding pop stars how unforgettable the shows were by Mumford & Sons, Phoenix and other bands who could've sold out the Varsity five times over when they were breaking, but they kept it on their itinerary.

When Gotye got to his mega-hit "Somebody That I Used to Know," opener Kimbra quickly joined him – but the fans didn't; not until the chorus, because it was so hard to hear the verses. Of course, the song is no "Crazy Train." Gotye's hushed, hunk-whispery delivery works well on the car radio or in headphones, but not on stage.

"Somebody" came three-quarters of the way through the set, the obvious climax of the show since the mega-hit was followed by the presumed next single, "Save Me." The latter song sounded like it could be an even bigger hit with its more ballad-like, piano-laden sound and anthemic chorus. Tellingly, it was one of the few songs without video accompaniment (not needed to liven things up).

Gotye himself was pretty good a livening things up with his physical presence. And no, that's not a comment on all the lustful eyes cast upon him from the predominantly female crowd. He was in constant motion. If he wasn't playing his standup drum kit, he was always snapping his fingers, clapping his hands or (at one point) pinging on a triangle. He get a little carried away in the encore, which was entirely made up of less electronic and more blue-eyed-soulful tunes, sounding a bit like he wants to be the next Michael McDonald and looking a lot like local "American Idol" contestant Reed Grimm as he dramatically danced around his drum kit.

Kimbra's opening set was quite a hot mess, in both good and bad ways. The New Zealand singer donned a playfully gaudy pink-puffy princess dress and danced around spastically, making for a pretty fun 45-minute set. Her singing outside of "Somebody That I Used to Know" was all over the map, though. She has a Gwen Stefani-like voice but oversang most of her quirky, breezy dance-funk-pop songs like she think she can be the next Björk or Janelle Monae. Nope.