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Live Review
by SashaS
21-3-2003
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| Ladytron's anti-sex appeal is a failure |
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Live: Ladytron
Electric Ballroom
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Ladytron: pop-art during wartime
Tonight is one of these nights where a choice for a music lover is – a rebus: there are the aging babes, The Bangles, plying their reformed tunes, Grandaddy are previewing their June due album, the magnificent-but-temporary reformation of Throwing Muses is more than inviting and finally, there is the future of time-suspended Ladytron. We head for Camden.
Backdrop projections, lightshow that shines in fans’ faces to leave the band looking like apparitions just like outlines, uniforms of the principal members and sounds that truly hover above this time of paedophile-pop… Created and performed by electronic instruments, the songs originate in the Kraut-rock, notably Kraftwerk, mode but that is a very simplistic and mal-informed perception of the Liverpool-based quartet with international personnel. Upon the Deutsche Welle base, synth-fuelled to the last chord, electro-pop is erected in the vein of New Order and Human League, with some funky beats, blues and avant-noises also finding roles within.
Touring in support of their second album, ‘Light&Magic’, the band have extra drummer and bassist onstage to allow for reproduction of the increasingly intricate recordings. The performance is motionless, the sonics are all that matter but this is also a show that reflects the members’ standpoint of pop music being an artform. That is the whole point of Ladytron, they regard what they do with strict aesthetic, utmost respect, care and loving attention that is so derelict these days! Yeah, machines can have soul… When properly programmed by pink-robots.
Ladytron use uniforms to de-image, de-sexualise and divert from the obvious pop-trickery; but, an anti-image has a habit of becoming the image, and – Helen Marnie is very eye-appealing! Intention is noble but futile in a stratum taught to replace taste criterion with a hormonal judgement… The only thing that disturbs the visual balance is that the two touring members – as far as it could be seen in the gloom – wear no uniforms. And, this line-up upsets the original gender equality…
New songs are performed with all the aplomb of freshness and eagerness to impress – no neeeed! – it all just sounds deliciously alien; the old faves – ‘He Took Her To A Movie’, ‘Playgirl’, ‘Ladybird’, from the debut ‘604’ disc – come at us with a speed of gunfire and at a single instance there is a tinge of guilt due to one self’s enjoyment while fellow humans continue to kill each other in yet another war. Ladytron’s rich soundscapes erase it in a trice!
There is little talk from the stage, only few thank-you’s for our deep appreciation, this being the serious business of pop extraordinaire re-briefing. Sound and vision, elegant and galore!
Tour dates (remaining):
21 March – Academy, Birmingham
22 March – Anson Rooms, Bristol
24 March – Leadmill, Sheffield
25 March – MDH, Manchester
26 March – Concorde 2, Brighton
28 March – Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
29 March – QMU, Glasgow
SashaS
20-10-2001
Ladytron album ‘Light&Magic’ is available now on Telstar
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