French dance-rockers M83 took to the stage at the Empty Bottle last night to bring their brand of 80s influenced jams to the ears of Chicago. They were pretty good I thought, though some of the songs didn’t quite translate as well to the stage as others, and the crowd wasn’t as dance-y as I thought they would be. Granted I was at the early bird show, so maybe the later show got crazier and more dancing was going on. All in all though it was a pretty solid show from these guys.
Before the show I was kind of wondering what direction it would take; whether it would take the more linear song approach of their new album or the more avant garde wall of noise approach from their previous album. The answer is that they certainly went for the wall of noise approach, which was pretty cool I think. Even the more conventional songs they played had longer instrumental intros to kind of set the mood and build it up into the songs themselves. They kicked it off with Anthony on stage solo for “Midnight Souls Still Remain” into “Graveyard Girl” and “Kim & Jessie”, which were both totally awesome, but from then on they certainly delved more into the atmospheric wall of sound areas of the catalog for the rest of the show. There was a great rendition of “Don’t Save Us From The Flames” and “Couleurs” was really quality as well. Unfortunately they didn’t play “Teen Angst” which I would have loved to have heard.
They do a great job of really getting a full sound with only 4 people on stage, largely thanks to Anthony’s giant blue box. He switches between that and the keyboards and the guitar many times throughout the show. The girl who was singing on keyboards on the other side was quite good as well, and she did most of the female vocals during the show (aside from the pre-recorded girl’s voice from the album), which really helped it have more of a band feel rather than just a one man show. Their drummer was also really good, and honestly when you are listening to the album you don’t really notice the drums as much, but he really tears it up back there live.
Even though there was not as much dancing as I expected (again, I bet it was because it was the early show), this was still a really good show, and I’m really glad I got to see these guys (Anthony said it had been 3 years since they had been in Chicago), and I would certainly say that because these guys just don’t tour the US very much, you should seize the opportunity to check them out.
These appear to be the remaining dates for the current tour:
30 May 2008 – The Mod Club – Toronto
31 May 2008 – Cabaret Music Hall – Quebec
2 Jun 2008 – Middle East Downstairs – Cambridge, Massachusetts
3 Jun 2008 – Music Hall of Williamsburg – Brooklyn, New York
4 Jun 2008 – Bowery Ballroom – New York
6 Jun 2008 – First Unitarian Church – Philadelphia
7 Jun 2008 – Black Cat – Washington
M83 – Kim & Jessie – From Saturdays=Youth
