I can’t say I’m a huge Ladytron fan, and I had only heard Datarock a few times before, but I knew that I liked both groups enough and so many friends were rabid fans of Ladytron that I was pretty excited about the show. As it was a work night, doors opened at 8p and Datarock went on not very long after that to a steadily building crowd. Right away I remarked about how these guys were either in witness protection or were hideously ugly, as they all had on matching outfits of red hoodies and sweatpants with their hoods up and with big, black sunglasses on, and the stage lights were limited to a handful of red lights pointing stage-ish. It didn’t take long to distract me from the mystery of their disguises, though. Datarock put on one hell of a fun show, from choreographed dance moves on some songs, to aggressively working the crowd during others, to singalongs with the audience. And then just when they’d thoroughly impressed me, they outdid themselves when they wrapped things up with a karaoke-inspired performance to the Dirty Dancing classic “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” that started playing at the end of their set…complete with a brilliant saxophone solo.
By the time Ladytron was set to come on the Imperial Ballroom was packed. As I watched the crowd buzz in anticipation, I was informed that the club had brought in a generator to handle the light show that was about to happen, something about how the light displays draw 100 amps and would blow every breaker in the joint in one pulse. I’m glad someone brought some electricity to their show, because Ladytron didn’t. With lights blinding and synths blazing, they put on a decent enough show, but I don’t know if they chose too good of an opener or if they put on too poor of a show. Either way, I would have liked more Datarock. Guess we should have stuck around, as I hear they put on a hell of a dj set after Ladytron. However, we decided halfway into Ladytron’s set that it wasn’t worth calling in to work in the morning and headed out.
If you haven’t heard these Norse hip kids before, check out a couple Datarock tunes
SoAngelicate
