Ladytron is badass. Expressions, no crowd interaction, no smiling and absolutely no dancing; it was very unclear whether or not the six musicians on stage were actual people, a very flashy holligram or a peek into 2050 when robots have taken over the music industry. To be fair, I did see vocalist Helen Marnie smirk once during the hour-plus set and she did throw a fist in the air during each chorus of "Seventeen." The two leading ladies of Ladytron looked like the evil twins of Canadian twins, Tegan and Sara; dark eyes flashing from their sinister, yet cute little faces.
Partying (or not) since 1999, Ladytron has been crafting electronic soundtracks for a solid decade. Their solemn, stoic faces are totally part of their gig, playing straight into their darkly laced pop songs and challenging their audience to see through the presentation.
Unfortunately the sound balance seemed quite off, making vocals extrememly hard to hear from underneath the layers of dark, almost gothic, electronic waves. When Marnie's voice was audible, she was incrediblely haunting; beautiful, solid pitches floating from her mouth. Her long phrases of 'ah's during "Soft Power" were flawless, floating right alongside the synth melodies.
The unbalanced sound also made Ladytron's songs hard to differentiate one from another. I swear I heard the intro to "International Dateline" about four times. The band played a long list of their old hits like "Playgirl", including multiples from the album "Witching Hour," such as "Destroy Everything You Touch" and "High Rise."
Aroyo sang in her native Bulgarian during "Black Cat," a track from their 2008 release "Velocifero." The band also debuted a new song in which one of the guys in back sang the lead solo with backup from Marnie.
The crowd was fairly tame, bobbing their heads to newer songs and dancing more to older favoritesl. Near the end of the set bubbles came down from the ceiling -- a big hit and yet another contradiction to the seriousness on stage.
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