Merriweather Post Pavilion has been on an indie-leaning bent for awhile now, so Sunday’s billing of Sleigh Bells and Hot Chip with a bonus James Murphy DJ set was par for the course. While none of these acts (with the exception of Murphy’s LCD Soundsystem, RIP) could fill MPP alone, together they brought a crowd that would have exceeded capacity of two sold out nights at the 9:30 Club.
While on paper the billing might seem rather odd—Sleigh Bells and Hot Chip aren’t quite the best sonic meshes—as Sleigh Bells front woman Alexis Krauss reminded the crowd, this wasn’t the trio’s first outing. Back in 2010, Sleigh Bells opened for LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip.
As for Sleigh Bells, the band gets better with each show. Having played at some of the area’s biggest and smallest stages, the band took their club-ready act and fine-tuned it for pavilions and stadiums while losing none of their charm. Sleigh Bells are uncompromisingly loud with a seizure-inducing light show of strobes, fog and enough darkness to frustrate the crowd’s iPhone photographers. Krauss is a perfect front woman, bringing the right amounts of danger and sexiness while still being able to play loose and have shitloads of fun commanding a large stage.
Flanked by guitarist/producer Derek E. Miller and touring guitarist Jason Boyer, Krauss sauntered onto the stage to for a fist-pumping rendition of “Demons” taken from the band’s latest record, Reign of Terror. The crowd took a few songs to get into the mood, but as soon as the intro began to this tour’s usual set opener “True Shred Guitar,” all hell broke loose. Krauss thanked everyone for coming out from Baltimore, D.C. and “wherever the fuck else” which brought rapturous cheer from the D.C.-heavy crowd.
The setlist was heavy on the older and more stadium-friendly material, but the slower songs from Terror, like “End of the Line,” and “Never Say Die,” provided breathers. The band even mixed things up, starting “Born To Lose” off with a slow version before picking up the pace (and subsequently, turning up the volume.) Krauss’s dancing has improved as she performed both “Kids” and the Funkadelic sampling “Rill Rill” alone, giving Miller and Boyer a needed break. Within their hour run-time, the band played the majority of their material ending with a cornea and ear-damaging rendition of “A/B Machines.”
Hot Chip wasn’t nearly as noisy and, furthermore, have become a well-oiled machine. Each of the band’s seven members play a specific role and watching the band create their tracks is just as exciting as dancing to them. The band, which is promoting their latest album, In Our Heads, took the stage to a warped version of “And I Was A Boy From School,” rendered so unrecognizable that it could’ve been a new track. Although they reworked their old songs, they played the new ones straight, which was equally enjoyable.
Sleigh Bells had the strobes and Hot Chip, too, had blinding lights, introducing a new color of the rainbow with each song. In Our Heads highlight “Flutes” proved to be perhaps too blinding, as some of the crowd has to shield their eyes. Each member of the band traded instruments, sometimes mid-song, creating seamless transitions that left little room for applause. Shifting from classics like “Ready for the Floor” to an electric cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere,” the band kept the momentum going never missing a beat. The hour set was so jam packed, the band didn’t even get to encore—frontman Alexis Taylor’s microphone was momentarily cut as he was saying his thank yous and goodbyes.
