Grimes played The Church
March 26th, 2012 by chocko
Montreal’s Claire Boucher aka Grimes played a show in the basement of the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia last Thursday in support of her 3rd album titled Visions which is a totally fun record if you like catchy, haunting cyborg electro-pop. I don’t normally make the roughly 2 hour trek to Philly but I just had to go. And plus, all her shows in NYC were sold out and I couldn’t get tickets to those shows. Throw in some Philly cheese steaks (shout out to Jim’s Steaks on South Street!) and some record shopping (Repo Records and Long In The Tooth) for the win!
Born Gold (formerly Gobble Gobble), another Canadian electro-export opened up for Grimes and made it through their set despite early audio problems. Their set was like a lo-fi Depeche Mode meets Tron. The lead singer’s jacket was fully equipped with flashing lights and colorful buttons that lit up the otherwise dark stage. The other two members of the band took part in the theatrics by jumping into the audience with strobe lights and another time with stilts while playing an instrument that looked like it was made from an old snow shovel. There was also some wacky choreography involving blinking decorative fans and creepy masks.
Grimes arrived and made a disclaimer to those in attendance in the basement that she had been sick and her voice was messed up. I don’t think the hyper-excited crowd would have even noticed that she wasn’t quite hitting those falsettos which sound so effortless on the albums. Grimes stood between two tables of all sorts of little drum machines, pedals and a keyboard…pushing buttons and singing into a microphone, often wincing at her attempt at the high notes. Her singles “Genesis” and “Oblivion” got the biggest response from the Philly crowd that never stopped dancing once the music started. Grimes was accompanied by members of Born Gold for most of her set that included a good amount of songs from the new LP which is heavy on synthesizers, loops and electronic samples. The album is a beautiful and intriguing schizophrenic mix of mostly upbeat songs with influences from 80’s club music and new wave to modern R&B. I can’t recommend it enough. The show was awesome and left the sweaty mess of a crowd wanting more. The basement took a while to empty out and it looked like a water pipe burst and a garbage can exploded up in there. Grimey Grimes is da real deal!
Tags: concert, grimes, live, philadelphia, philly, review, show, the church
Posted in music | Comments (0)
