Chromeo: Fox Theater, Oakland, CA 2/18/11

It was a particularly, cold, rainy, and all-around shitty Friday evening in the Bay Area.  Most people would have most likely been in their warm homes sippin’ on a hot toddy, except for the fact that on this night, Chromeo was in town.  And so droves of Chromeo fanatics braved the weather and filed into the Fabulous Fox Theater ready to get down to the infectious retro-electro pop of this unlikely duo from Montreal.  Many fans dressed in 1980s attire for the event, and walking through the audience, I felt like I had stepped into a John Hughes flick (the spot-on Cure fan/goth attire of one couple was the hands-down winner).  Apparently I didn’t get the dress-up memo, but no matter, it was clear that everyone was ready to get down hard.

These fans set the tone for the night, and the place exploded when Dave 1 and P-Thugg took the stage to a “Chromeo-o-o” Wizard of Oz-like chant over the PA.  The night started off with “Don’t Turn The Lights On,” a catchy track from their most recent album which sounds uncannily like it could be a radio staple from 1982.  The trademark robo-synth-funk of the tune got everyone moving nicely, and started off a run of music that didn’t let up for one second – what followed was an onslaught of freaky electro-grooves and vocoder mayhem, one tune after the other, for two hours straight.  Every song consisted of pre-recorded backing tracks over which Dave 1 sang and played guitar, and P-Thugg rocked the voice-box vocoder – the sparse stage setup included only keys, a guitar amp and a mini percussion kit.  And though this essentially made the show a DJ set with live embellishment, the crowd couldn’t have cared less – these guys are studio wizards first and foremost, after all.  “Tenderoni” inspired a massive sing-along, and included a satisfying vocoder work-out which drove people wild.  There is just something about the clean, synthesized nature of a good vocoder solo that really hits the spot, and P-Thugg clearly knows this and uses it to his advantage. 

At some point in the middle of the show (right around “Bonafied Lovin’”) the party really got going.  Inside the gorgeous, ornate Fox Theater, with the crowd bathed in indigo mood lighting, it was far more entertaining to watch everyone get down in costume than it was to watch Chromeo perform. “When The Night Falls” brought us into the late 80’s with its female diva-sung chorus and Madonna-sounding synth melodies, which dueled nicely with Dave 1’s freaky guitar lines.  After a pulsating “Night By Night” delivered in a falsetto-vocoder call-and-response between Dave 1 and P-Thugg, things were brought down a bit for the sing-along guitar-driven power ballad “Mama’s Boy.” This was followed by the club-tastic electro beats of “Fancy Footwork,” which brought the house down in a shower of confetti and bumpin’ drum machines. For an encore, Chromeo dropped their old (2004-era) club hit “Needy Girl,” which blew its load with a vocoder overload of epic proportions that left the retro-fied masses sweaty and happy.

For a DJ act, the Fox was a massive venue for Chromeo to play, and they succeeded in turning the regal, palace-like confines of the venue into a freaky, throwback dance party.  The lack of dynamics which the pre-recorded tracks afforded didn’t bother the crowd one bit, which was clearly there to get down long and hard.  Chromeo’s set chugged along at a steady clip, and in a live setting, the irony and self-referential nature of their music came across as more genuine than expected.  These guys clearly love the synthesized sounds of the 80’s, and pay homage to them in a completely authentic way.  Even so, their music is still delivered with a good dose of tounge-in-cheek whimsy – they don’t take themselves very seriously, and it’s precisely this fact that makes Chromeo so damn fun.

Related Content

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter