Last night with Crystal Castles at The Academy rocked!
Alice Glass is the perfect front woman for the electronic/dance duo. Beautiful, energetic, a little crazy but with a whole lot of edge. You don't even notice the other two on stage (producer Ethan Kath and a drummer). Mainly because Ethan hides under his hoody, slouched over the keyboard. All eyes are on Alice. She crawls onto the stage looking like a long limbed Russian doll in converse and lies hunched in a ball. slowly she unravels as she screams out the lyrics jumping from foot to foot, the lights pulsing in time with the bass, but leaving them in darkness for the down-tempo parts. This allows us only dramatic glimpses of them serving to give an exciting and untouchable aura, such as when she stands on the drum kit, banging the symbols sporadically with her microphone .
Through the voice distorter they both sound a bit wheezy and muffled, like harmonicas are trapped in their lungs. Alice chaotically screams words we cant make out, but strangely it works and lyrics aren't what they do best anyway, it is making brilliant and thrilling dance tunes, such as firm favorites Baptism and Air Wave.
As any good rock chick should, she occasionally swigs from a bottle of Jacky D before pouring shots into the mouths of her adoring indie boy fans as she crowd surfs, losing the bottle completely to some hipster kids up the front. Probably for the best as she appears ragingly demonic enough, a few more swigs and it could've gotten ugly.
Crowd surfing is something she does repeatedly throughout the set, even after the encore and the other two have left the stage, music over, Alice remains floating along outstretched hands in the buzzing mosh pit (see above photo my mate took), eyes rolling in the back in her head, mouth wide open, before security pull her out.
Suddenly, on stage on her own, lights on full, she appears bashful and gives a shy wave as she skips off. Leaving hundreds of very sweaty but very happy people to spill out into the street. Perfect Saturday night gig.
