M83 played the Black Cat Friday in a blaze of flashing lights.
The band was alternately silhouetted and shadowed, highlighted and obscured. Sometimes powerful riffs appeared punctuated by a bright green laser-like beam that shot out over the crowd. It was one of the more involved stage set-ups I’ve seen at the Black Cat. While M83’s image was obscured their sound was not; from their hazy platform, they rained down shimmering guitars, ascending synth lines, and funky bass riffs.
M83 has some stunning songs that did not disappoint in a live setting. “Kim And Jessie,” off Saturdays = Youth, is a tale of a couple infatuated with “romance and illusion.” Live, it was a euphoric, melancholy blast of pop love, both more amorous and more dangerous. The drums lurched forward, halting and pounding and tumbling in an avalanche of unpredictable and unstoppable percussion. The drum break before the last hook was particularly awe-inspiring. The voice of Anthony Gonzalez worked well with the backing of his female keyboard player, and the crowd did a good job of chiming in with backing vocals on some songs (or at least I yelled a lot, hoarse and out of tune, on songs like “We Own The Sky”).
“Midnight City,” the world’s blistering introduction to M83’s latest album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, may have been the best song of the evening. Seeing the strange collection of seemingly unrelated notes suddenly arrange themselves into a groove before your eyes was revelatory. It was as if Gonzalez, his band, and the audience were all discovering the beat for the first time.
The pace of the show could’ve been better: after a slam, bam, thank you ma’am opening, Gonzalez and co. got slightly complacent and occasionally cloying, slowing in the middle section before exploding again for the finale. They weren’t helped by the crowd, who seemed pretty unenthused considering the show was sold out—there was little movement, and most people’s feet appeared glued to the ground, even though M83 demands a readiness to jump into the stratosphere with each monster chord change.
Like his characters in “Kim And Jessie,” Gonzalez is completely taken by romance and illusion. M83 knows it’s good to lose yourself in those two things every so often. Friday night, they helped the crowd escape with them.
