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HOT CHIP
  • 4/5
  • Venue:
  • Gig:
  • Gig date: 30th November 1999
  • Posted on 10th March 2010 by Livemusic Team
Hot Chip walk on to deafening applause … on tape. Then the real ­audience start clapping, not just at their arrival, but at the audacity of such a jape. The south London quintet that emerged in 2004 with a song about the sexual properties of chocolate have clearly not lost their reputation as pranksters, but it's no joke that they have suddenly grown into one of the best pop groups in the country. More soulful and human than previous works, new album One Life Stand pitches them somewhere between the Pet Shop Boys, Giorgio Moroder-era Sparks, Italian and Chicago house. It's a long time since anyone has blended existential melancholy and dancefloor euphoria so expertly. Live, it shouldn't work at all. The five boys couldn't look less like pop stars: it's as if they met in a desperate scramble to find the most ill-matched clobber in a gentlemen's outfitters. But the contrast between their slightly geeky appearance and exhilarating sound seems part of their appeal. They only have a conventional frontman when unassuming Alexis Taylor leaves his keyboard, and yet they rock the house so hard that the crowd's whoops are even audible over the ear-battering PA. Growing in confidence as a performer, Taylor has found his voice: a luxuriant, emotional falsetto, the perfect counterpoint to Joe Goddard's droll tones. Brothers is a gay anthem in the making, Hold On is sublime deadpan disco, while One Life Stand, Over and Over, and Ready for the Floor instantly raise arms in the air. By the time they start segueing numbers into one non-stop seamless groove, Taylor is even emboldened enough to shake his maracas at the crowd. They may look as likely to slay a dragon as a dancefloor, but the Chip shop boys know how to throw a party. At the Academy, Birmingham (0844 477 2000), tonight. Then touring. Dave Simpson http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/19/hot-chip-review

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