Wednesday 17 February 2010

Hot Chip – Rock City (15th Feb 2010)

This gig combined all the hedonism and euphoria of your favourite dance anthems with real heart and soul. Even on a damp, cold Monday night Hot Chip brought the carnival atmosphere – dynamic and dancey, but not at the expense of emotion and their idiosyncratic, lovely songwriting skill.

For the live set, they reworked lots of their material - especially some of the big hitters. Boy From School (the wife's fave) became punchier and less vulnerable. Over and Over morphed into the perfect killer tune – something that got the mosh pit chanting and pogoing like crazy, but still surprised and tickled the headnodding musos at the back (apart from the huge muscle-guy next to Bex, who remained as solid and impassive as a rock throughout).

Yes this was stadium dance at times, but it kept all the subtle, intelligent flourishes that have always marked Hot Chip out as a band of beguiling character. Even when turning everything up to ten and they never trot out some Pendulum-esque 2-D luddite dance-rock.

The new material sounded great too – Brothers being a particular favourite. Guitarist / steel drummer / trumpeter (!) asks us all to vote for it to become the next World Cup anthem and I for one can think of nothing more apt.

Anders
x

(p.s. I did take some pics and awfully noisy video, but my phone has decided it hates me so I can't put them up. It was an AMAZING gig though. - Bex)

No comments: