Hot Chip @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / Terminal 5 - Tue Apr 08 / Sat Apr 12, 2008

A week with Hot Chip

There aren't that many bands I see live every time they come to NYC, me being busy or not. Hot Chip is one of those few bands, and with the way they are killing it these days, it seems they are gonna become much more than that... they might be my more consistently good live band ever.


I gotta say right away, that overall, the show at Terminal 5 was better than the one at Music Hall of Williamsburg. The latter was announced after the former one was sold out, and as you can imagine it sold out in minutes. After getting my T5 ticket, I bought my MHoW ticket too. MHoW was going to let me see Hot Chip up-close one more time before it is too late, even though the audience was going to be comprised of NYC area people who follow current music, bloggers or not, who are in general, pretty tough to be convinced by a band to shake it off. At T5, I imagined, I was going to be completely surrounded by truly Hot Chip fans, who were going to bring it down with the band no matter what. Of course I had to be at both shows.

In any case, Hot Chip killed it at both shows with, unfortunately, the exact same set list. Eleven songs before the encore, and four to close their spectacle, kept everybody ondulating their bodies, if not going crazy for the most danceable tracks.


Hot Chip's live shows keep having the same structure as always, but just different sets of songs. This time, the party and the dancing found their peak with Shake a Fist, Hold On, Bendable Poseable, Touch Too Much, Out at the Pictures, One Pure Thought, Ready for the Floor, Don't Dance, and a trio of old songs for which it is nearly impossible to stand still, Boy From School, Over & Over, and No Fit State. The humor, although a bit rare in their recent shows, it was present too with the fantastic Wrestlers, a song that live sounds huge with Alexis and Joe sort of rapping at each other back and forth. And last, love, lots of love... this time with the classic Crapt Kraft Dinner (I wish there were more time for some tracks like that off Coming On Strong and The Warning) and the new beautiful ballads Made in the Dark, that titles their newest and fabulous new album, and In the Privacy of Our Love.

Props to the new lights the band is using, to the new moves Owen and Alexis are making, to how confident Al is at the vocals now and at the guitar after touring with LCD Soundsystem dangerously way too much, to the new set up on stage with Felix playing the "drums" (drum machines actually) in the back, and to Joe's hilarious sort of rapping.


Damn, I think I am never going to get over this band. They make interesting music that I enjoy listening and singing along to in my house, in my car, in my parties, in the bars I go to, and live. Seriously, what else could I ask for? [photos of ths show at MHoW][photos of the show at T5][photos of the DJ Set at R Bar]

♫♫♫♫♫

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

Hot Chip Links: Stream Made in the Dark, Stream DJ-Kicks, Stream The Warning, Stream Coming on Strong, Official Website, YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia

Hot Chip @ Highline Ballroom - Sat Feb 02, 2008

Hold On

Hot Chip played the nice Highline Ballroom last night in anticipation of their new album Made in the Dark, coming out next week, and it couldn't have worked better. There was a lot of jumping, fisting and singing along for their infamous songs, like Over & Over and Boy From School, and now for their new songs. These guys seriously need to record an album live, cause they do it like no other.


Hot Chip started the show with Shake a Fist, one of the songs on the new album that they have been playing for a long time, even when promoting The Warning. They started strong, hitting every possible object around. After Boy From School an early highlight of the show came for me: Hold On. It's one of my favorite songs on Made in the Dark and live sounded as good as I wanted to hear it. Alexis and Joe looked a bit surprised seeing that a good portion of the in front crowd already knew the lyrics, but we are in 2008 and albums leak every week and stuff you know. They know it too and smiled.

There is a new Hot Chip live if you haven't noticed. They are playing more ballads than before and I hope they bring back more of their quirkiness to the live setting, like they did last night with Wrestlers. It was time to show off... Alexis took off his Chinese shirt and gave us a good surprise:


I always enjoy the most the interaction between Alexis and Joe, and it soon came in the third song with Wrestlers. You see them and couldn't agree more that they were meant to make music together. Alexis and his funny lines about going out on Mondays to watch wrestlers, with Joe's sort of rapping, will make you laugh. Man, they used to call themselves Sophocles and Ulysses!

The synthesized Touch Too Much sounded great and was followed by their trademark Over & Over, which I am sure we don't need to talk anymore about how crazy people go when they hear it live. The Beautiful We Are Looking for a Lot Of Love let us have a break right after and they continued with Out at the Pictures. Such a great beginning for the new alum was the song I though they were going to use to open the show, but it was rather used to bring back the dancing everybody loves at their shows. Have you hear the chorus? Hot Chip is the only band I can hear barking like dogs and me not feeling like an asshole for following them. The only one.


The big surprise of the night for me came next, Bendable Poseable. Such a crazy song. I still think the beginning of Made in the Dark is a bit too heavy, but with time it softens, like with The Warning's opener Careful. Bendable Poseable is fourth in that beginning and its crazy beats and sounds along the song live sounded like what I needed, like a crazy rythm to follow to heat up the night.

Ready for the Floor, their most recent single was great. Damn, the whole concert ok? Just in case I haven't insisted enough about it. Then they dissapeared. Well, most of them but Al who didn't notice (or pretended?) not seeing their bandmates had left the stage. According to their set list they were supposed to play Don't Dance to close the set, but who knows why they didn't. They were into the show, the crowd was into them, as always, and the talking can be seen now everywhere about how great the show introducing the new album turned out to be.

Something the band want everybody to realize is that they are not only Over & Over kind of song writers, and by playing a Made in the Dark full of guitar noise as their first song for the encore we were reminded of that, but they finally left the stage after making everybody sweat once again with the energetic No Fit State. They were supposed to play my fave One Pure Thought as part of their encore, but again don't know why they didn't.


I hope they keep the soft revitalized songs coming because it was their interesting slow music (Coming On Strong, namely) what got me into them and will never let me go. And with shows like last night's I am being nicely forced to stay with them. [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♫♫

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

Hot Chip Links: Stream Made in the Dark, Stream DJ-Kicks, Stream The Warning, Stream Coming on Strong, Official Website, YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia