La Roux
The Palace, Melbourne
Thursday 1st October 2009

It's hard to know how to review an act that is essentially karaoke. With no hard evidence of aural sonics actually being created, do you focus on the performance aspect? The lights, the dance steps, the outfits? Seize on the minimal between song banter? Or do you listen to the crowd, try and gauge their reaction to their dollar swapping for panto?

Dunno. When the lights went down at the Palace last night, the decision to move this gig from the 900+ capacity Prince Bandroom to the 1800+ Palace (formerly and maybe always The Metro) was overtly justified. People veritably hanging from the rafters, sandwiched on to the dancefloor and screaming at - as people are want to do - the pop star. Boyish frontwoman Elly Jackson is one, if still an awkward, pleasingly unlikely candidate.

La Roux are also a duo but you wouldn't know it. On record, in press and live, Jackson is La Roux. Banished is Ben Langmaid, synth player, co-writer and co-producer of the duo's only album. Langmaid doesn't play live, and though he's not here, his music precedes him. And the three-piece backing band.

As the first few beats of 'Tigerlily' start pumping through the soundsystem it's a heavy, accidental glimpse into what's going on here. The stage is completely bare but for two mounds of serious keyboard equipment and an electronic drum set up. The 'band' stroll on stage waving to the crowd, and start playing along to the music to no conceivable audible effect. Finally Jackson walks on, quiffed up, wearing a striped suit of dubious era and looking a bit nervous. And only just on the generous side of her teens.

When the first flush of videos showing La Roux performing live hit the web they were uniformly underwhelming. Jackson's voice wavered between tenuous notes and breathy weakness. Not so now. Her voice is at once cold and attracting, a soft, cool instrument that even when she furrows her brow and seemingly belts forth, sounds unnaturally calm and collected. It's what the band is all about really, and over the course of the evening it is the star of the show, something that distances La Roux from any number of her electro contemporaries. There's heart in this cold sound.

What else? They played their one and only album. It feels stupid assigning adjectives to songs, because pre-recorded tracks pop at the whim of the PA rather than any human involvement. At one point they did all trigger their instruments at the wrong time, which caused a laugh. If the set began with Jackson a little nervous/mortified by the hysterical response she was evoking, she finished it as a conductor; egging on the audience, hopping between the monitors at the front of the stage and twirling around between her bandmates. Aloof and involved, all at once.   

Highlights were the hits: 'Colourless Colour', a surprisingly affecting 'Cover My Eyes' (that one of this dance pop band's best songs is a ballad bodes well for some sort've future path out of the fluro rabbit hole) as well as, of course, the closers 'In For The Kill' and 'Quicksand'. Jackson minced. The dancefloor heaved. No encore. No showbags on the way out.

(Pics: Tim O'Connor)