Crystal Castles Review.

Crystal Castles at Billboards, 4/2/2009.

The support act was some band from Brisbane, i think they were called UZ or something. I hate to say it but they are not necessary in this story. They were just a peripheral to the event. They were ok, their first couple of songs really rocked out but they seemed to lose momentum and just sort of fizzled out at the end, plus they played for far too long which began to really annoy the crowd. At the end they were pretty much just playing to a big room full of people talking too each other. They finished up, lowered the curtains and we began the obligatory wait. It was hot and crowded in there and people started to get restless, for a while there we actually thought that someone was going to lose their shit and kick off. After and hour they raised the curtain and Ethan Kath came on stage and positioned himself behind his bank of synths and an unknown drummer came out and positioned himself behind the drums. All at the same time the drums started with a Crash! and Alice Glass, who had crawled onstage under the cover of darkness, sprang up, and the huge free standing lights came on and as one the entire crowd lifted up and started jumping. Alice was screaming and the beat was pounding and the whole place petty much went mental. Alice writhed around on the stage, jumped off into the crowd and had to be pulled out be security again and again. The crowd loved her, pulling at her as she screamed and yelled into the mic, hoisting her above their heads as she flung herself around.
It was loud. It was ear splitingly loud. I can not empathize just how loud it really was.
The show was all about Alice really, and in a way it was totally worth it. Ethan Kaths' huge sounds were a prefect base for Alices' antics, and his music was aggressive and angry and loud enough to sustain the emotion of the crowd. The music was violent and raw and the beat unrelenting, it was difficult sometimes to distinguish between the live drums and Ethans synths. They played Crimewave about three songs into it and that's when everybody, myself included, totally lost control. A lot of the music was so loud and distorted that it was almost un-recognisable and Alices vocals faded in and out constantly, it wasn't until the final song that they had her vocals mixed in properly, but it didn't matter, just her running around and having her distorted squeals kick in occasionally was good enough for us. She was a show of her own to watch, she gave herself up to the crowd and the obligingly devoured her. They wanted her sweat, her blood, her body, wanted her to give it all and she just about did. It was entirely sexual and probably had a similar vibe to pack rape.

With their video game inspired sounds Crystal Castles are the perfect music for today's monster children that are the next generation, it was an apocalyptic dystopian nightmare made real. For most of the show the lights were a flat white wash, bathing the stage in a stark cold light. There was an overtly sexual nature to the whole thing, the crowd wanted so desperately to fuck her that the air was thick with pheromones. There was no need for pyrotechnics or special effects, we just wanted some one to get up on stage an tear themselves apart for our amusement. And they did.