CityLife

Hot Chip

IT'S been repeated as endlessly as the proverbial monkey with a miniature cymbal, but Hot Chip don’t really resemble a band.       

More “Clor” than “phwoar”, diminutive  frontman Alexis Taylor arrives onstage wearing an orange Gore-Tex jacket (the kind that might be accessorised with a compass and orienteering map) that he later sloughs off to reveal a white boiler suit, while the rest of the innovative electro quintet look like a chess club on a busman’s holiday.

Basically, they’re the group equivalent of a packet of broken biscuits. 

What they lack in dazzling charisma, however, they compensate for with a resounding stage show that transforms the Apollo into a Warehouse Project rave; pitching Taylor’s fragile, angelic quaver against a wall of bludgeoning beats, synths, effects and bongos.  

Amid strobes and dry-ice, they open with One Pure Thought, from third album, Made In The Dark.

So confident are they of their repertoire that the Oxbridge-educated PhD-poppers spunk off a blazing rendition of their landmark hit, the naggingly addictive Over And Over, mid-set, which in spite of its indie disco ubiquity, hasn't lost any of its power to thrill.

Tangents

With a predilection for unexpected tangents and an aptitude for a pop hook, dancefloor mayhem is ensured, courtesy of the Kraftwerk-in-space of  Bendable Poseable and the digital hip-hop of Wrestlers (with its lyrical salvo of ‘Half-nelson, full-nelson, Willie Nelson').

The ‘What if Giorgio Moroder had penned a ballad?’ moment of And I Was A Boy From School – taken from 2006’s Mercury-nominated The Warning - sees its gauzy, lovelorn synths ditched in favour of a full-band kitchen-sink-reswizz.

Yet it’s Ready For The Floor, used to close the pre-encore set, that proves the evening's money-shot.

It was wrongly alleged at the time of release that the band had offered the track to Kylie and you can’t help but feel that in her pixie hands, it would have reigned at number one for weeks.

As its synths boing and riochet around like Sonic the Hedgehog pinballing through the Casino Night Zone, and giant white balloons descend from the ceiling, it’s the quintisentially British, reassuringly-askew picture of a band whose time is now.

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