LADYTRON, THE FAINT, CROCODILES
RIALTO THEATRE
Friday, April 24
There’s a fortune taped to my refrigerator that reads: “People who
expect nothing will never be disappointed.” I should’ve kept that in
mind before seeing this show.
Opener Crocodiles mixed fuzzed-out guitars (à la Black
Angels) and lo-fi vocals. While quite promising at first, things
quickly took a turn three songs in, when the band adjusted the feedback
pitch to an intolerable level, forcing most onlookers to cover their
ears and causing several folks to seek refuge in the lobby.
Happily, I had no expectations of The Faint, from Omaha, Neb. Not a
band that likes to be pigeonholed as “electronic,” The Faint offer a
sound that relies in large part on driving synths and wild effects.
Everything was seemingly played live; surely, there were a few minor
prerecorded elements, but these elements didn’t detract from the
incredible musicianship. The Faint had the exuberance of a new,
up-and-coming band and the tenacity of seasoned professionals, and they
appealed to all fans by touching on every album in their arsenal. The
light display, perhaps a bit ostentatious at times, was in step with
the rest of the performance. The Faint offered the complete package,
and the audience was clearly in love with them.
After an elaborate changeover—there were eight keyboards, a
guitar, a bass and a drum kit on the stage—the six members of
Ladytron took their places. In the live setting, the triteness of their
lyrics became a painful reality. The vocals—the jewels that set
them apart from other bands in the genre—were tragically obscured
by too much reverb. The low-end sound of the synths wreaked havoc on
the nervous system, and the strobe effects behind the otherwise-awesome
LED panels were distracting.
I’m not sure what they were distracting me from, though. Every song
was two minutes too long and bled into the next. There was an air of
pretension that was unflattering; the band didn’t need eight keyboards
to make those repetitive sounds (which ended up canceling out the
guitar and bass completely).
After waiting a decade to catch them live, I was let down. I left
early and pretended Ladytron never happened.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.
