Crystal Castles @ The Camden Roundhouse
There was a time when the prospect of a Crystal Castles gig was met more with trepidation than anticipation. When touring their debut LP in 2008 Alice Glass and Ethan Kath could hardly have been accused of being reliable. Turning up late, scrapped shows and cancelled tours became all too common. If you were lucky enough to attend one of the gigs where Alice actually managed to turn up, then there was the small matter of what condition she’d be in. Staggering on stage in near paralytic condition, fighting audience members, passing out before the show’s end and delivering performances that could kindly be described as inaudible quickly formed Crystal Castles’ modus operandi. The band soon found themselves with a powerful live mythology, for better or worse (and there were some truly great moments too), a Crystal Castles live show had become an event.
Fast forward two years and Crystal Castles find themselves in a very different place. They followed up the stylized, albeit one dimensional, 8-bit rage of their debut with the considered layered electronica of Crystal Castles II. Suddenly the buzz words for Crystal Castles were maturity and credibility. They found themselves drawing tentative comparisons to electronica’s heavy hitters The Knife & LCD Soundsystem. This was all good and well, except Crystal Castles had pitched themselves as Iggy & The Stooges of electronica. The anarchic wild child of the genre; the notion of bringing subtlety and serenity to their live shows seemed completely absurd. Therefore tonight, the first date of their UK tour, at a sold out Camden Roundhouse seems pivotal.
As soon as Alice Glass strode on stage it became clear that you were witnessing a band with renewed focus and drive. With a set list that remarkably managed to reconcile their two divergent aspirations; drawing from their two albums equally while throwing in a splattering of pre-album oldies.
The anarchy and unpredictability is still there. Alice spent almost the entire set battling her way through a heaving crowd. Bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand mic in the other she stood on audience members shoulders and crowd surfed her way through every other track. Then in a truly bizarre, you had to be there moment: she began walking across the shoulders of the front row, crotch thrusting with every step before falling headlong into one of many circle pits. Her whole performance had a ramshackle charm a bizarre marriage of seduction, primal brutality, inebriation and vulnerability.
While insanity occupied the front of stage Ethan Kath and the band delivered an incredibly tight and urgent set that satisfied on multiple levels all across the electronica spectrum. The brain dead thrills of “Doe Deer” and “Reckless” were reminiscent of a Pendulum gig giving the crowd plenty of opportunities to hurl themselves headlong into one another. At other times the set was genuinely moving (“Celestica”, “Empathy”, “Crimewave”) with the fragile cries of “When I Chose To Rest My Eyes, Coax Me, Don’t Coax” providing the kind of poignancy normally reserved solely for a Fever Ray show. The rest settled into an energetic middle ground that recalled Daft Punk at the height of their live powers.
Tonight Crystal Castles were blessed with an insatiable sold out crowd who turned the Camden Roundhouse into one giant sweaty circle pit. Alice and Ethan cannot expect to be greeted so enthusiastically every time they step on stage; yet with a show this tight and engaging Crystal Castles will not struggle to win over whichever audience is put in front of them. Tonight we were given a snap shot of a band in transition, making bold strides in the right direction, reconciling their many contradictions to put on a show that was equal parts brutality and beauty. The days of aesthetics and antics are numbered; Crystal Castles are on the fast track to art house credibility.
