If I told you that I just saw Depeche Mode, The Talking Heads, Billy Idol and Culture Club in concert at the Vogue Theatre, you’d say it’s too good to be true – and then punch me in the shoulder and call me a jerk. It is too good to be true, but Friday, October 7th, Australian electropop group Cut Copy parroted their best impression, channeling the power of the ’80’s through marimba-styled electro jams and unabashedly awkward, body-jerking dance moves.
Cut Copy made the scene in big way in 2008 with the release of their second album In Ghost Colors, dishing out unparalleled retro revival to an uprising of electro-lovers who lamented the passing of a synth-driven era where being moody didn’t mean you couldn’t dance. 2011’s follow up, Zonoscope, showed the group’s maturation – departing from glee-induced, hedonistic anthems in favor of tighter songwriting, vocal driven melodies, and textured rhythms. Not the In Ghost Colors 2: Electric Boogaloo some fans were looking for, but it proved that the band had the grit to let a good thing be – moving into new territories, despite transparent influences.
While dark clouds gathered menacingly outside the venue, Cut Copy greeted us inside with musical sunshine. The feeling was a warm, non-aggro, dance vibe that concertgoers of surprisingly varied ages shared – happy to remember summer together, once more, before it’s just a faint memory. The bands first time performing tracks from Zonoscope in Vancouver came with mixed emotions, evident when In Ghost Colors favorites like “Lights and Music” were dropped, thrumming a lulled crowd back into a heel-kicking dance flurry. It was those moments when dancing felt like the most natural thing in the world and I remember looking around, amazed, as literally not a single body wasn’t jiving, hopping or otherwise motioning ecstatically.
The bands performance energy was pretty minimal, with frontman Dan Whitford being the obvious face – leading the crowd in cheers of “Oooo – oooo – yeah’s” with sweeping arms and the occasional zealous, arm-raised clapping that indicated we should do the same. A confusingly 4-piece group, Cut Copy was occasionally joined by the appearance of a 5th mystery member whose role never insisted beyond smashing an extra piece of percussion for various song-moments maximum acoustic effectiveness. A high point came after an incessantly long ambient build-up in the middle of “Sun God”, launched Whitford to break down into a David Byrne-styled vocal rant. This was trailed by the lead predatorily mounting the drum-kit – a stray drum stick held like a knife, stabbing the cymbals in mock aggression until they were good and dead.
“More fans have recognized us here [on the streets] than any other place we’ve been,” Whitford related of the bands four day stopover in Vancouver. The sentiment was nice, but read a little like “Gee, Vancouver, you sure have a lot of hipsters.” – a testimony supported by a room filled with enough plaid to make even the most stalwart lumberjack blush. Long time fans who were hoping for a little more of the bands stabbing, house influenced tracks were left in the dry as “Saturdays” was the only throwback played from Cut Copy’s first and often overlooked album, Bright Like Neon Lights. Another personal let-down was that the crew rolled through a straight-off-the-album performance, rarely undoing their top collar buttons to toss us an experimental, live deviation.
The biggest disappointment, however, was probably that the facetiously entitled, chillwave, genre labelled co-headliner, Washed Out, was told to get stuffed at the border – stifling their first stint back in Vancouver since the release of current buzz album Within and Without. Unhappy tidings to giggers that wanted a taste of something fresh and current.
The show was sold out but the venue felt sparse, with large portions of the upper level abandoned. Despite no-show disappointments, Cut Copy was still a nice reminder that it’s always sunny somewhere in the world, and that the ’80’s are always there for us when we need to dance.
Review By: Greg Hennessey / Photos By: Michael Caswell
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