Live Review: Chromeo Sent to Heaven at the Masquerade in ATL

This is a new venture I'm doing on this blog. Whenever I attend a concert or show, I'm gonna blog about it, as I should because I'm awesome! And the fact that I'm still doing this from my phone means I love you guys that darn much!

First time's a charm for Chromeo's first performance in Atlanta. It was also their last stop on their U.S. Business Casual Tour, and it was arguably in front of the most energetic Southerners this group has ever seen.
In front of a sold-out Masquerade, the duo stuck to a fairly traditional style of performing while keeping a highly energetic crowd attentive to their presence. Dave 1 (guitar and lead singer) didn't engage much with the crowd, which wasn't necessary but would've been great. Small talk between songs were "are you guys ok out there?" and "this is our first time here and it's awesome!" It was cute, but a serious problem within their crowd-pleasing repertoire.

The songs selected for this show were a DJ's dream, but that goes for just about their entire collection. A lot of their hour-long performance came from their upcoming album Business Casual (dropping September 14th). They kicked their set of with "Hot Mess," which got the crowd's attention but nothing special. The crowd became engaged when "Bonafide Lovin" followed, and it was smooth, Chromeo-style, sailing from there. The group's performance of these records wasn't straining at all, in fact I felt like I was listening to the records at a party. Moments of some sort of improv were there, but it wasn't used. The guitar mini-sessions in "Bonafide Lovin" could've been the points where Dave 1 could've shown his skills, but he just kept it the same as the song. P-Thugg was more crowd-engaging than his partner, with random pointing towards the audience and singing "ATL" in his talk box. He manned all of his stations for the most part, and he seemed to have the most fun. Well, second-most fun, first goes to the crowd.

This crowd, this diverse crowd, managed to bring the house (also known at that venue as "Heaven") DOWN! I was confused as to whether the bass from the party below us was thumping the floor or if the floor couldn't hold still admist the failed breakdancing attempts and free-flowing drunkards. This goes as little props to Chromeo though; the atmosphere of that place was dance party first, Chromeo concert second. That crowd had the same reaction and spirit when the doors opened! Chromeo was just icing on the cake for folks.

Beyond their scripted and typical crowd-engaging small talk, Chromeo still put on a great show at the Masquerade. There weren't any technical problems that usually arise in that warehouse-turned-club venue (from what I heard), and though the crowd was packed like sardines no one felt too uncomfortable to the point where they'd want to slap somebody. Overall, it was a night of good vibes accompanied by a good, uniterrupted, and often awkward band.
For more upcoming Chromeo concerts, check out their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/chromeo