Montreal's funnest musical sons, Chromeo, came to Toronto's Danforth Music Hall as part of their Come Alive tour last week, and trotted out some old favourites, as well as new tracks from their upcoming album White Women, which comes out next week. Here are seven things you missed.
1. Oliver winning over the crowd
When opening act Oliver came on, the room was half full and largely indifferent. His set of pulsing, retro-minded house quickly won them over. By the end, he was doing that thing EDM guys do where they raise their hands over their heads to get the crowd to cheer before a bass drop. Who started that, anyway?
2. The slanted floor at Danforth Music Hall
We understand that it’s really, really silly to talk about how great the floor is when recapping a concert, but bear with us for a minute. The slanted floor means that unless you’re standing directly behind Jonas Valanciunas, there’s basically no bad place to stand at the Music Hall. Every time we go to a show there, we’re thrilled by this. Every venue in the country should be built like this.
3. Chromeo fans
For a band whose whole aesthetic is so thoroughly steeped in irony, Chromeo fans take their favourite band really seriously. They know the words to every song, from “Needy Girl” to “Jealous.” They turn into a sweating, dancing mass from the first note. They have their own chant that they do before the show, when demanding an encore and during any lulls. (It goes like this “CHRO-ME-O WHOOOA-OH!”)
4. Lights, so many lights
Strobes, spotlights, neon lights, spotlights reflected from Dave 1’s mirrored guitar. We can’t remember the last time we felt the need to wear sunglasses indoors like that.
5. Dave 1 stopping in the middle of 'Mama’s Boy' to encourage the women in the crowd to get up on a man’s shoulders
We’re not really sure why this was necessary, but it made us really thankful for the aforementioned amazing sight lines. Nonetheless, roughly 20 people were kind enough to oblige so we could get on with the show.
6. The alarmingly ballsy decision to start the encore with an unreleased song from their forthcoming album
Nothing puts a crowd on edge like the phrase “Here’s a new one,” and yet, when they came back out for their fake encore, they opened with the unreleased “Frequent Flyer.” Thankfully, the song is a synth-pop banger and the crowd was so stoked they just didn’t care.
7. A really, sharp, tight, technically solid performance from two talented multi-instrumentalists
Here’s the thing about Chromeo. There’s a reason they can get away with having one member of the band look like the lost member of the Cars, and the other dressed like Freeway circa-2003, while singing profoundly goofy songs like “Mama’s Boy”: Dave 1 and P-Thugg are really good at everything. P-Thugg is the only musician since Roger Troutman to truly know how to work a talk box, and he's an excellent keyboard player and a better-than-you-realize bassist who's able to work so many consoles and machines that it looks like he's on the bridge of the Enterprise. Dave 1 is a charismatic frontman whose guitar playing is severely underrated. As a unit, they’re a finely tuned, well timed machine.
by Chris Dart via Electronic RSS
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