Hot Chip at Troxy
It’s fair to say that for two decades, Hot Chip have quietly been one of Britain’s best bands – hence why they can release a banger-filled “greatest hits” album while being somewhat anonymous outside their fanbase.
Yet as experts at joyous festival sets and unique shows, they bring plenty of devoted fans to the Troxy in East London.
It’s a crowd whose enthusiasm matches and surpasses groups who troubled the charts more in the 2000s so-called “indie sleaze” era. One which they rose through the tail end of, but never quite fitted in with as purveyors of sophisticated electronica.
Their opener, new track Devotion, feels like one of the classics despite making its live debut. It is quickly followed by the driven yet mournful Huarache Lights.
Then comes the superlative One Life Stand – a song that may be unique in terms of being equally listenable on a crowded dancefloor, as a first dance at a wedding, or under the covers after heartbreak.
Like all of Hot Chip’s best work, these are defined not just by Joe Goddard, Al Doyle and the gang’s expertly orchestrated synthpop but by lead vocalist Alexis Taylor’s melancholic falsetto. From their romantically wistful start, though, Hot Chip move quickly on to the ravey Night and Day and Flutes.
We then get the newer Eleanor, Positive, which is played for the first time in years, and 2019’s Hungry Child. Relatively early in the set, it’s time for Hot Chip’s defining breakthrough hit – the quirky, nightclub smoking area emptier Ready for the Floor. Hot Chip’s fans may no longer be fresh-faced students throwing wanton limbs – but among the crowd, there’s a similar, if creakier, response.
The lull of Look at Where We Are and I Feel Better is then followed by another live rarity, Need You Now, whose slowed-down take on early 90s dance hits is an absolute joy.
Inevitably, though, Hot Chip close the main body of their set with another of their signature tunes – Over and Over. Their devoted crowd, of course, respond, “just like a monkey with a miniature cymbal.”
After that, the encore does feel somewhat anticlimactic – though it’s plenty of fun, consisting as it does of the yearning nostalgia of Boy From School, the anthemic Melody of Love, and a cover of Liquid’s Sweet Harmony.
Yet that’s perhaps how things should be with Hot Chip – a group who, despite producing what for those present are era-defining bangers, have always made a virtue of understated brilliance over lazy crowd-pleasing stasis, even when doing a set that ostensibly celebrates their greatest hits.
Mark Worgan
Photos: Virginie Viche
For further information and future events, visit Hot Chip’s website here.
Watch the video for Ready for the Floor here:
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