Photo: Hot Chip live last week at O2 Academy Leeds
“Brothers
I can play Xbox with my brothers
It’s not about who won or lost with my brothers
We play to be free.”
Like cricket, Hot Chip are a thing of wonderfully British eccentricity. Unlike cricket, Hot Chip positively embrace trying new ideas and are exciting.∗ Indeed, when they enter the stage tonight, between them sporting circular spectacles, orange brogues, green cords, and a well trimmed moustache courtesy of knob twiddler Felix Martin, and launch into a steel drum version of And I Was A Boy from School, they could well be described as the excitingly eccentric English gentleman’s pop club. Though, the drummer’s New York Yankee’s t-shirt slightly lessens their exceedingly English charm.
‘What’s that,’ I hear you exclaim, ‘a drummer? Hot Chip don’t have a drummer!’ Well they do now, at least on tour; a real, living drummer man who provides a vibrant and more driving edge to the band’s live sound, something that, perhaps, has been lacking in the past.
This is a hometown gig for guitarist Al Doyle, so with his and other band members’ family in attendance, including mama Doyle beaming with pride up on the balcony, there’s extra impetus to please. And please they do with a set half taken from new album One Life Stand and half from the preceding two albums.
The best received of the new songs is unsurprisingly the title track and current single which then evolves into Over And Over, and guess what? The crowd went ape shit. It is rather depressingly without doubt the biggest reaction from the audience all night.
Yes, it is unarguably an incredible, already classic piece of pitch-perfect pop but songs such as Ready For The Floor, One Pure Thought, So Glad To See You, Crap Kraft Dinner and so many others are just as good, if not better than the ‘monkey with the miniature cymbal’. It just seems a bit of shame that, as ever, the majority of the gig’s joy is expressed for that one song, but obviously it’s a common occurrence for a lot of bands. It’s their Song 2.
One song from the new album that sounds like it could be added to their every growing collection of ‘Great’ songs is Brothers. Its tender intro, moving and funny lyrics sound even more sublime live than they do on record. It is the height of beautiful, emotive pop music that never drifts anywhere near sickly sentimentalism. One Pure Thought also deserves a mention for being brilliant, as does No Fit State which they always seem to nail on stage, so much so that I would even venture to say that it is in fact, their best live track.
Award for best shapes thrown on stage goes to the ever-dashing synth and bass man Owen Clarke. Almost new romantic in his moves he is entirely immersed in the genius grooves being produced by his band. As we all are. If you may allow me to speak like a twat for a moment: Hot Chip? More like Hot Shit! Yeah! No, but seriously, they’re really damn good.
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* Don’t get in a fluster cricket fans. I’m not slagging it off. I do actually quite like it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Hot Chip is also playing in London Feb 26, 2010 and Feb 27, 2010 at 02 Academy Brixton. In Paris March 8, 2010 at Bataclan.
