CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE MONDAY NIGHT CONCERT HERE.
“Obliterate the Sunday you’ve been cherishing all week,” Ladytron blithely recommend on Velocifero highlight Season Of Illusions. “Obliterate your Wednesday,” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but there are worse ways to spend a Tuesday night. Having sold out their Monday show (even less sexy), The Metro Theatre is pleasingly roomy for the second coming of Ladytron. It’s going to be tough work whipping this early week throng into weekend-worthy abandon.
As it turns out, Ladytron aren’t too fazed about going the extra distance. They slink onstage, six black-clad figures, and launch straight into Black Cat. Their aloofness either works for you or it doesn’t – but expecting them to get excited is like going to Donut King and asking for a burger. Beyond frontwomen Mira Aroyo and Helen Marnie, it’s best not to examine too deeply the workings of the rest of the band. They’re all shrouded in darkness anyway; save from the occasional flare of a neon light.
The Bulgarian lyrics of Black Cat are well-highlighted in the sound mix, but there’s not much distinction in the driving electro buzz. Not to worry, as we’re already powering through Runaway and High Rise. Apart from appreciative applause, the crowd is content to make like Ladytron and keep its poise. I’m Not Scared ups the tempo, propelled by solid drumming and Marnie’s pacey vocals. Marnie (cropped, angular haircut) takes the bulk of the singing, while Aroyo (cropped, slightly scruffier haircut) is the Bulgarian-born beauty who does a few numbers in her native tongue. One such inclusion tonight is True Mathematics, which comes on all dark, dastardly and mysterious. For all we know, it’s about frolicking in a field of daffodils.
Predict The Day is a standout, if only for its relative simplicity – just a bottom-heavy bassline, military drums and Marnie at her most glacial. Deep Blue is a bit of a non-event, but you can do no wrong following it with definitive anthem Seventeen. Is that dancing I see? And hands in the air? It’s a pure pop rush; a song that’s far better live than on record. Each cry of “seventeen” is accompanied by a surging back-beat, and, yes, even some spontaneous movement from Marnie.
The Tuesday cobwebs now shaken off, Ladytron disappears with a clipped “thank you”. They’re back soon enough for an encore that flares into life with the near-industrial Burning Up and crescendos with one of electroclash’s finest moments, Destroy Everything You Touch. It really is a case of saving the best to last, and all gathered react accordingly. Wednesday won’t be obliterated, but it’ll certainly be spent sated.
