Chromeo: A Show Review in 1 Minute or Less
Been too busy to blog about the Chromeo show last Sunday, but it was, as you can imagine, pretty fucking rad.
We missed the opening act; a DJ Rad who, judging by his MySpace page, wasn’t all that rad anyway. He was followed by Steed Lord, a sort of low-rent Lords of Acid who wants SO desperately to be Lords of Acid that they stole 1/3 of their name. Meh.
Shortly before Chromeo appeared, the audience began chanting the “Chro-me-oh, Whoooaaa-oh” chant from the start of their second album when suddenly, as if they knew the tempo of the song by heart, the beat joined the audience. While they continued chanting, Chromeo came on stage, backlit by a big wall of flashing multi-colored lights. Dave got extra awesome points when, after their first song, he made a Curb Your Enthusiasm reference. “That was pretty good,” he began, and just as I was about to start my best Larry David impression he followed up. “Prettayyyy prettayyyyy….pretty good.”
The live show is a little different than I had imagined. Dave generally handles guitar and bass duties, P-Thugg the synths (occasionally bass as well), but between the two of them was a rack with a couple mounted woodblocks, cowbells and splash cymbals, which each of them took turns smashing from time to time. Dave is also a much more accomplished guitar player than his albums would lead you to believe, and he threw a lot more solo trickery into the live versions of his songs. Wicked guitar solos with harmonized talk box only adds to the sweatiness.
They contrived to pull out two encores between two albums of material, and I’m pretty sure they performed it all. Overall, a pretty straightforward show without a lot of stage antics or anything (save for a brief 80’s medley, comprised mainly of Journey but with a short digression into The Outfield’s “Your Love”, which slayed me), but definitely a band whose music lends itself well to a live performance — I loved every second of it.
I felt obligated to buy my brother some merch, since he introduced me to Chromeo a couple years ago, and I picked him up a shirt and a vinyl, as well as two additional shirts for my GF and myself. The show pretty much cost me a fortune, but well worth it. I think that makes up for the fact that I don’t actually own any Chromeo albums in the physical sense. *cough*
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
Hey, this DID take about a minute. I know, because I tested it a la watch.