Hot Chip
The Troubadour
Los Angeles, CA
8/2/06
I’ve been to the Troubadour many times since I was old enough to even care about going to shows, and normally the clientele is your usual post-college hipsters who smell like beer and make out with their girlfriends by the back wall in between sets. But I never thought that any band could successfully turn the Troubadour into a full-blown nightclub-esque dance-a-thon; that is, until I went to the Hot Chip show last Thursday night.
I got there about 15 minutes before they were set to go on, skipping over opening acts Bobby Birdman and What Made Milwaukee Famous. The room was packed completely full and I had to push my way through lots of really tall boys and drunk girls to get to stage right, where there were about 4 square feet of remaining space to stand. One of the band members (whose name I still haven’t been able to figure out, though I made a mental note that he looked like a hip version of Chris Martin with more hair and even did some pelvic thrusts into his keyboard) went across the whole stage and tested all the equipment. He played a few dance-y beats from the drum machine that gave me a taste of what was in store for later, when the band treated us to their pure, synth-infused dance rock.
The real focus of the performance was on the synthesizer and drumbeats, some of which came from the live drummer (who came all the way from LCD Soundystem). There was a distinct funk vibe in the guitar playing, which was kind of weird considering the music was straightforward, hypnotic clubbing music, but the band could probably ditch the guitars and still sound awesome. And in fact, they’ve said that they want to take rock music away from the guitars and give it to the keyboards. So yeah, mission accomplished.
I’ve read a lot of comparisons between Hot Chip and Bloc Party or Franz Ferdinand, but the only real similarity is that all of them are from the UK. Hot Chip’s music is less about angsty lyrics and more about the way it gets inside you and makes you want to move a leg, or an arm, or sometimes both if you’re feeling rather ambitious. I could barely hear one lyric during the entire set; most of the time all I heard was the synthesized bass that had been turned up a little too loud. It didn’t make a visible difference to any of the audience members, especially not to this short guy who had created a bit of space around himself and was happily dancing away like no tomorrow.
One of the notable songs was the surprisingly Postal Service-esque “Colours and Colours,” where there is a chorus of “colours and colours and colours and colours and” (well, you get it) sung over mid-tempo computerized handclaps and a medley of keys and synthesizer blips.
I left during the encore to avoid the mad rush out the door to the $7 parking lot across the street, but I could still hear the bass pulsing through the double doors and I’m pretty sure I annoyed a lot of dancing folks when I pushed them (yet again) just to get out of the main room. Hot Chip are on tour in Europe until November, but catch them again when they get back to the States and you’ll find yourself saying “Bloc Party who?”
-Diana Salier