HOT CHIP @ Metropolis

By Simon Howell - A Listening Ear - 04/15/2008

While critical reactions to Hot Chip's third album Made in the Dark have been mixed, the album's go-for-broke approach to pop eclecticism seems to be a hit with music fans -- the last time the 'Chip hit town, it was at La Sala Rossa only a year and a half ago, promoting their breakthrough release The Warning. This time around, they sold out the 2300-capacity Metropolis -- a mixed blessing, as while it's nice to see love for the band, it's easily one of my least favorite venues to negotiate.

Regardless of how they got there, Hot Chip have certainly risen to the challenge of playing to larger crowds -- albeit with a few minor hiccups. After a long, ominous synthesizer intro (going nicely with the stage's giant moon backdrop), the band came on and started right into a skeletal, surprisingly loose rendition of "Shake a Fist." In fact, many of the performances -- a whopping eleven of which were drawn from Dark -- deviated from their studio counterparts to a refreshing degree. "Bendable Poseable," which comes off as an eccentric, if catchy, gag on record was somehow morphed into a potent pop anthem, with the band getting excited enough to prompt Joe Goddard to inject some impromptu swearing into his off-kilter interjections. Dark standouts "Touch Too Much" and "Wrestlers" were allowed a subdued treatment, while more upbeat tracks like "Over and Over" and "Hold On" were amped up.

The Achilles' heel of Hot Chip's live show was their pacing -- they frontloaded their main set with nearly all of their album highlights, leaving slim pickings for the inevitable encore. Second-tier tracks like "Don't Dance" and "No Fit State" were given the heartiest workouts possible but just didn't measure up to their more fleshed-out material. Luckily, they did find a slightly surprising way to cap off the proceedings -- with a tender performance of Dark's closing track, "In the Privacy of Our Love." The song brimmed with emotion, and was considerably more evocative than its dimly produced studio counterpart. Maybe with one more solid release, they'll be able to sustain that intensity for an entire evening.

(Unfortunately, I narrowly missed openers Free Blood , but their recent EP is great fun.)

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