Staff Writer Leah Henry “gets” the boot.
As the lights flashed at 9:30 Club, Crystal Castles’ twenty-three year old vocalist, Alice Glass, armed with a boot (recently broken ankle), charcoal eyeliner, and a cane was revealed, her leg alluringly pressed against a speaker, white-knuckled fist clutching the mic, raring to go.
Glow sticks stirred, excitement heightened, heaving masses screamed, and scantily-clad Alice thrived on the energy. Her latest injury may have kept her out of the rafters, but it didn’t bar her from the hungry crowd as she stepped on the lines and bouncers to be stroked and fondled by sweaty fans.
Her reputation as a ferocious, out of control, unreliable punk singer drew me to the show. Having no time for unreliable characters in my “real life,” her attitude, at a safe distance, is comical and slapped-on. After all of the ”bad girl” hype, I expected to wait hours, be spit on, and have the show end early due to some crazy outburst, but Alice was on time, she brought a softer energy (disappointing anyone who wanted to see said outburst), and put on a solid show.
Wave after wave of overly zealous fans were escorted out as “Baptism” erupted, “Empathy” smacked, and “Suffocation” pulsed. Alice quasi-crowd surfed but was captured by bodyguards. All told, the performance was about the music – imagine my relief.
I respect an artist playing through injury, and I valued the boot’s inability to inhibit her range of motion. (Still mad after 10 years at James Hetfield, lead-singer of Metallica, for throwing out his back on a jet ski and letting Kid Rock take the lead.) She was hopping around, using the cane like a dancer to buy leverage for more daring moves, and her floor writhing may have been a clever tactic to give her ankle a rest. The strobe lights gave her an alien-like quality, quickly transporting her from one side of the stage to the other, like switching from your right eye to the left. Ethan Kath, the brain, and Alice Glass, his brain child, have paired intense electronic waves and organ-rupturing drums with penetrating auditory angst so skillfully that thousands of people inexorably succumb to it.
You never know what you’ll get. I got “Celestica,” a track where all the sounds fused, and Alice’s voice intensely affected that song live; her voice disarmed me, and I disintegrated.
Ed. note: We found some great clips of the actual show on YouTube.
