Sometimes, all music needs to do is get your tail feathers moving. Consider the latter mission accomplished--in spades--by Danish electro-disco citizens The Asteroids Galaxy Tour at Neumo's Saturday night.
Even if you're not familiar with The AGT, odds are you've heard 'em. Their 2008 track, "Around the Bend," was showcased in an Apple iPod Touch TV spot, and the loping retro-futuristic lounge pop of "The Golden Age" made its way into a Heineken commercial last year. Both songs represent The Asteroids Galaxy Tour sound pretty well--sunny, sinfully catchy uber-pop that hurtles everything including the kitchen sink at your eardrums. It's a style that captures the grand big-pop tradition laid down by everyone from ABBA to the Spice Girls, then sprints with it.
Bands this unashamedly poppy don't always fare too well on a live stage. What's been buffed and polished to an airplay-ready sheen in a studio can fall apart in the outside world. Lars Iversen,The AGT's multi-instrumentalist/principal songwriter/mastermind, knows that. He plunders influences from the last fifty years of popular music (disco, psychedelia, new wave, swing, and loads more), but he's built most of the band's songs on honest-to-God hooks that were written, not sampled. And he smartly augmented his pop group's live sound with a solid core of strong musicians Saturday.
The brash synth-horns that opened the strutting midtempo funk of "Major" got boosted by the genuine article (namely, a saxophone and trombone). One of the horn players even doubled on flute during "Out of Frequency." A wall of real drums, meantime, powered the irresistible circus-calliope keyboards of "Heart Attack" with a seriously hard groove. The packed house responded in kind, singing along and leaving no booty unshaken.
Any uber-pop outfit worth the sugar in their cotton candy needs a great focal point in front, though, and The Asteroids Galaxy Tour's got gold in the form of lead singer Mette Lindberg. Covered in more sequins than a fish has scales, Lindberg rocked a slightly space-age Roller Disco Queen look--and her winningly-strange, chirpy voice added to the percussive propulsiveness of the music. The fact that Lindberg's a crush-worthy cross between Heidi Klum and Gwyneth Paltrow in the looks department didn't hurt, either.
The much-recommended (in this neck of the woods, at least) practice of arriving early to hear every band on the bill once more yielded rewards Saturday, with strong opening sets by Hotels and Vacationer. The latter provided a tightly-played meld of Beach-Boys harmonies, Hall and Oates retro-grooves and dreamy indie pop a la Wavves. Great stuff, but Hotels--a Seattle quartet--took a thankless inaugural set and royally won over the crowd. Their jumpy new-wave sound, restlessly energetic playing ("We don't do relaxed very well," lead singer/bassist Blake Madden joked), and truly catchy songs got the dance party started early, and in style.
Comments