Hot Chip Actually Only Lukewarm

Tuesday night's performance by Hot Chip was surprising. While the band's productions are based around heavy synth-work, we weren't expecting every song to be built around such danceable foundations live. Even the more quiet songs became stompers, and a sizable portion (it'd be fair to say even most of the crowd) was ready to party, and did so. Looking around Neumos there wasn't any direction where you could look and see people not moving (except for the balcony, where things seemed a bit more sedate until late in the show).

So with that said, why does this post's title seems so critical? The departure into more party territory makes sense on the surface. If you assume a crowd has already heard your album, you want to give them something different, something more. Hot Chip delivered on the former, but not so much on the latter. It was great to hear them play the songs we know and love ("Colours" sounded great, and even popped up in our dreams that night), but the "partying up" of the songs left things sounding a bit same-y. Somehow part of the band's charm didn't make the translation, the soul getting lost in the machine. We still enjoyed it, but we wanted to enjoy it more (we're picky).

If anyone out there in the -istaverse is reading this while debating whether to go see Hot Chip, by all means you should. Bring your dancing shoes and sing along to your favorites. It's a great show for that. However, we have high hopes that next time it won't feel so sterile and formulaic. Once the group figures out how to bring their heart to the party through their piles of gear, it's going to be nothing short of amazing.

(Side note: Yes, we understand the irony of a big techno listener critiquing a live band for making soulless music. Let's just ignore that, m'kay?)

Image from flickr user georgeaye