Astonishing. While the Melbourne kids were still reeling after their Daft Punk experience last weekend, I got to see Crystal Castles play at the Oxford Arts Factory and I couldn’t have been more impressed. Forget what you might have heard in the past about their live shows being a disappointing, unrecognisable mess. The only disappointment was the set-length barely 25 minutes but we were all so hot and sweaty by that stage, no one really minded that there was no encore. And Crystal Castles don’t really seem like the encore type anyway.

Alice has an astounding stage presence, I’m pretty sure the entire crowd had a collective crush on her by the end, including the girls (especially the girls?). While she was falling about the stage and drum kit in true excessive rockstar fashion, Ethan (real name Claudio) played the perfect foil, remaining absolutely still, hunched over his keyboard, and very occasionally contributing some subtle vocals. It was fantastic to see Alice perform the vocals to HEALTH’s Crimewave when they played their very successful remix, because she did it perfectly. Melbourne has a lot to look forward to this weekend.

Now for something slightly different, you can catch a Crystal Castles DJ set at Spectrum (Sydney) tonight with local act Emergency! Emergency!. I’m still deciding whether or not to attend, because I probably should save myself for Daft Punk this weekend, but I certainly will be crazy-jealous of those of you brave enough to risk it.

Only three more sleeps till Never Ever Land…

Crystal Castles – Vid Kids

Crystal Castles VS Comic Book Fever – Cry Babies

- bec