Live music mania...
Hot Chip are a brainy electro-pop quintet, with four out of the five members being Oxbridge graduates. They have been on the scene for a while now, formed in 2000 and now three albums down the line, they are on the road again, touring along the country and showing that you can be both intelligent and play equally good music.
It was almost midnight before these guys emerged onstage. We were presented with a bizarre circus figure who appeared in front of our eyes, a sore sight indeed. This could be no-one but Alexis Taylor, the frontman of Hot Chip, wearing his trademark nerdish spectacles and sporting a rather in-your-face garishly-coloured robe which, thank goodness, he shed off later on in the show to reveal more acceptable and less alarming stage-wear consisting of plain white overalls.
It was inevitable that the anthemic ‘Over and Over’ was going to be on the ecstatic agenda for this cracking live set. The crowd reached their climax of the evening for sure on this wild, extreme energy bulldozer. Cacophony reigned recklessly, whilst adrenaline pulsed through our veins as the flashing lights lit up the entire stage in a epileptic, chaotic demeanour.
‘Ready For the Floor’ was also on the bill. If you haven’t checked out the video, well, you are missing out on something that is just beyond strange, with false teeth, weird women that appear to have been cut half due to the clear choice of backdrop as well guys trying to dodge sticks that poke out at them. Crazy layout, crazy costumes and crazy colours. Completely bonkers. It’s all in there.
Another prominent crowd-pleaser was definitely one of the highlights of the show- ‘And I Was A Boy From School.’ This swoonsome song has a fantastically gripping tune which is melancholy in sound yet simultaneously catchy and even at times joyous and hopeful. The amalgamation of Taylor’s somewhat poignant vocals with Goddard’s baritone in this tune lead to an oddly touching effect. The strong pulse that ran through this number is again highly hypnotic; the texture builds up as more instruments are added layer by layer before the vocals kicks in. Teasing and wetting our appetites for sure. The chorus had the entire Brixton crowd singing ‘We try but we don’t belong.’ It is safe to say that Hot Chip are no longer outcasts in life now that they’ve gained wide recognition and success across the UK as well as most of the globe and are reaching more and more new audiences by the day.
Amongst the tracks that they played that night included their new song, ‘Alley Cats’, a soulful, slowish, euphonic number, a track likely to feature on their forthcoming fourth album, which they plan to record soon. What Hot Chip does best is texture and good melodies and this song epitomises both key aspects. Likewise we were delighted by another slower track: the ambiguously titled ‘Playboy.’ Do the five of them look like playboys? We don’t think so. They should just stick to their music for the time being.
‘One Pure Thought’ was dominated by the repeating mantra – ‘I won’t be on my way’ with dynamic beats and a confusing mesh of electronic sounds providing a rich, polyphonic-textured, lively soundscape.
The band showed off their repertoire of stuff with ‘My Piano,’ an upbeat slinky number heavy on the synthesizers and keyboards with short bursts of piano chord stabs to amplify the jilting rhythm. ‘No Fit State’ taken from their second album ‘The Warning’ was a classic belter-‘We caught the fire but the body escaped.
Love other people but I don’t know their names.’ What peculiar lyrics, ringing of some truth though.
The show was not complete without a spectacular combination of laser beams and dramatic use of glittering disco lighting which tantalisingly conveyed the hectically exhilarating atmosphere.
The band finished their set with their fiendishly compelling, mellow version of Prince’s classic ‘Nothing Compares 2 U.’ Well, for that magical epoch, nothing could have compared to Hot Chip and their maverick musical gifts.
The show was overwhelmed with the euphoric atmosphere, compounded by the release of a dozen or so enormous balloons into the buzzing crowd towards the end of the set. The eager crowd jumped up like a bunch of five year-olds fighting for lollipops, everyone was reaching into the air, either to the music or lured by these crazy floating beauties. With some luck and maybe some tall genes, we got to be little kiddies again, happily playing in the playground that was Brixton. A fabulous show that thoroughly entertained with the invigorating energy and infectious enthusiasm that exuded from the band.
Top notch action from these Oxbridge alumni. Boffins they may be, but they sure can churn out some decent original stuff, doing it with style.
