Whilst a DJ in a cowboy hat is playing European electohouse, someone in the crowd starts inflating LED balloons to throw amongst the crowd who are wearing a frightening amount of UV paint and glitter on their faces. It can only mean it’s a Friday night in London; and, perhaps to add to the already hedonistic party atmosphere, Crystal Fighters have rolled into town to provide the soundtrack for the evening.
So, the Cowboy Hatted DJ (complete with leather boots and neckerchief) is apparently one of the support acts for the evening. He goes down about as well as you’d expect for a DJ playing music no one has heard of in the graveyard DJ shift… That is to say, no one is the slightest bit interested. He perhaps manages somewhat of a dull buzz when halfway through he plays a bit of Disclosure— but even that is short-lived because he remixes it into god awful techno.
Luckily Roosevelt arrive before I can start aiming pints at Cowboy Hatted DJ’s head. Their bright, summertime electropop is the perfect complement to Crystal Fighters own sound. Their setup leaves for little movement or crowd interaction– you could almost say they lack stage presence– but musically they’re everything you need to warm you up for this evening: hazy, danceable electronica with sweet, catchy melodies and sharp, precise vocals layered over the top. Even though this is my third time seeing Roosevelt, I end up feeling as charmed and under their spell as the first.
Before Crystal Fighters take to the stage, we end up watching 20 minutes of what can only be described as making musical carpentry– or, to put it another way, hitting planks of wood to create a tune. It’s unusual and interesting… at first, but it ends up going on far too long. So long, in fact that the security guard starts commenting “kids will make music with anything these days– all you need is a bit of plywood” (possibly the comment of the evening). But even as the wooden demonstration comes to an end, there’s still no sign of the band for a staggeringly long period of time– whether it is to built anticipation remains to be seen, because I find myself getting increasingly annoyed.
However all that fades once the pounding bass of ‘Solar System’ starts and the band bounds on to the stage in their frankly over-the-top attire (adorned with about as much glitter as the entirety of the audience). From here on out the show is a masterclass of how to transport your audience to a different time (summer) and place (Spain) delivered with relentless energy.
It’s a set designed to make you positively brimming with happiness and energy. The tempo isn’t simply set to ‘get up and dance’ but rather ‘get up and dance like no one is watching– so go bloody mental’— which everyone does. Tracks from latest album Cave Rave and Star of Love slot alongside one another seamlessly– providing a setlist of huge danceable, singable anthems that have the crowd 100% committed to the experience.
The band don’t seem to have the word ‘static’ in their vocabluary– with all seven members bounding around the stage constantly throughout– with Graham Dickson clambering on top of the speaker stack and jumping off at one point (which probably was 15ft up, brave man). Between them and their astonishing lighting, there’s always something to look at on stage– helping to amplify the whole experience.
It’s the double bill of ‘You & I’ and ‘Plage‘ that encapsulates everything about this gig and Crystal Fighters sound. Their songs are feel good anthems all about the simple pleasures of life which encourage a complete freedom within the audience. ‘Plage‘ encourages a crowd-wide, anthemic sing-along which is echoed all the way back to the tube station later in the night.
Tonight has been all about escaping the humdrum of London and being transported off to Crystal Fighters sunkissed electro-folk world. And they very much succeeded.
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