What better way to break up the monotony of the working week with a mid week gig? I was very excited to see this band and had heard much about their performances, that they’d been the show-stealers at both the Big Day Out a few years ago, Splendour in the Grass last year as well as Beck’s Festival Bar when they first toured the country. I’m talking about none other than Hot Chip – “The most effortlessly cool band in Ravesville” (thanks, NME).

The band was pulled to the forefront of the ‘nu-rave’ movement in 2007 (thanks again NME), although if anyone would actually be able to explain exactly what that is to me I’d be impressed. The quirky geezers certainly have a knack for producing some brilliant synth-driven, pure pop bliss.

We arrived just after 9pm, the warmup DJ was playing a bit of the general cruisy house music but nothing too exciting and the venue slowly swelled, but there was still a lot of space to move around easily and the vibe was generally pretty friendly. I was quite surprised to hear this gig didn’t actually sell out. A shortly time after Hot Chip appeared on stage, and together they look like an odd bunch of characters I must say, with front man Alexis Taylor sporting his trademark oversized glasses, and they exploded out of the blocks with the instantly recognizable riff of One Pure Thought that quickly had the room going nuts and singing along, helping them on their way.

Without so much as stopping to take a breath they followed right into Bendable Posable, and followed with one of my personal favourites Hold On. The crowd sang along to the lyrics, “I’m only going to heaven if it tastes like caramel,” and how sweet it was to see everyone going crazy to this song. They then rolled into a reworking of Ready for the Floor and it sounded like a completely different song at first, with this occurring a few more times during the set, with the reworked versions of some of their songs making for a unique live experience.

As the set progressed I noticed that a large majority of the material played was off their newest album, which divided critics and fans alike. I personally think the thing Hot Chip do brilliantly is their upbeat, synthy pop songs such as Over & Over. They have knack for writing incredibly catchy hooks, and I think they fall down with the slower songs or ballads, which was evident on the second album.

The momentum varied during the set, and Hot Chip couldn’t quite sustain it after starting off with so many of their big tunes, and when they started to play their slower stuff I felt the atmosphere drop down a few notches and the crowd lost a bit of interest. Then unexpectedly they dropped their anthem Over & Over. I thought this song would be a sure thing as the encore, so I was surprised to see them drop it right in the middle of the set and in between some of their slower songs, but nonetheless it was met with a fantastic response from the crowd.

Wrestlers was played before they left the stage, and I really was wondering what the encore would be now as they’d already played most of their hit songs. When they returned they played a few more of their slower tunes, including Made in the Dark and No Fit State. To close things off they finished with a re-working of My Piano, an obscure choice off their DJ Kicks album, especially when easily several of their most well-known songs off their first album had yet to be played.

It didn’t make for the greatest way to end the show; they’d started with such a bang, but fizzled out towards the end. Overall I thought it was a good concert but not a great one, I’d still encourage you all to catch Hot Chip at the Big Day Out across the country because they’re a band with enough weapons in their arsenal to really blow you away. They just need to use them with a little more tactical consideration to achieve the desired effect.