A day after headlining Sugar Mountain, Hot Chip treat Melbourne to a one-off sideshow with support from Sydney’s Touch Sensitive. Writhing around behind his bass and elaborate keyboard set up, Touch Sensitive’s Michael Di Francesco warms up the early crowd with his undeniably good synth-house vibes. Despite a massive weekend, the crowd is pumping from the get-go, welcoming Hot Chip to the stage with a roar.
In spite of Why Make Sense? beingless than a year old, the band opts to include only three tracks from the album. They open with its first single Huarache Lights and drive home their second act with the follow up single Need You Now. Romantic deep cut Love Is The Future also makes an appearance, flooding the floor with purple disco lighting that gives off ‘90s prom vibes.
Hot Chip bash out half of 2012’s stellar In Our Heads, including an especially lush rendition of slow-burner Look At Where We Are. Earlier hits such as Over and Over go down just as well as their younger siblings – really, every song in the setlist goes down a treat.
The joy in the crowd is tangible and there’s barely a mobile phone camera to be seen. The encore includes classics such as Ready For The Floor and I Feel Better, beforeculminating in the ultimate crowd-pleaser – a cover of Dancing In The Dark that leads into LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends.
The crazy fun vibe in the crowd affirms what Hot Chip are good at: producing innovative and exciting dance music that displays heart. Flitting between frenzied rave and slow dance romance, it’s hard to imagine an equivalent dance gig in recent history.
BY ALI SCHNABEL
Photo by Ian Laidlaw
Loved: Everything, from start to finish.
Hated: No Boy From School.
Drank: One beer at the start – too much dancing for anything else.
