By Jase Walker
Two days in a row at the same venue, I feel like I should be paying rent by this point! Tonight’s show is another ‘out there’ show for me with Dutch electro rockers, De Staat, supported by similarly noisy electro punk outfit, CLT DRP.
It’s great to see CLT DRP doing their stuff on stage again after their great yet somewhat bumpy ride of a performance at The Wave… in Leeds a short while back. What strikes me immediately after they start is how incredible the sound is: it’s so crisp!
If you didn’t know, CLT DRP are a three-piece, drums, vocals, and guitar that uses a pretty insane amount of effects to the point where it barely even sounds like a guitar anymore. I genuinely don’t know any other band that sounds or does their live performances quite like CLT DRP, there’s something about the whole stripped-down band set up that makes the amount of noise they do that makes it all the more engrossing.
Some of their performance reminds me strongly of Crystal Castles, or more specifically Alice Glass. It’s every bit as rock or punk as it is stuffed full of strong throbbing bass and synthy chugs and with Annie at the front switching between soulful singing and outright shouting, it all makes for this interesting package I’m watching right now. It does look like a solid chunk of the audience doesn’t know who CLT DRP are but as the sets moved on, people have warmed up to it judging by the steady movement forward towards the stage. This set’s been another fine example of CLT DRP are onto something unique that people never knew they needed, people visibly go very quickly from “who are these?” to “holy shit this is great!”.
You want some feminist electro punk that can deliver massively energetic live shows? Well, this is it.
De Staat has brought with them quite the light setup with several very large, and very bright LED flood lights that are almost blinding. This show is oozing style, not only with the singer wearing a snazzy jacket but with the almost synchronised movement of the band as they play. They’ve got a style that I can only describe as rock n roll with bizarre electronic noises all over the place, it’s bloody great. Considering they’re a 5-piece with keys and effects and the sound is fantastically balanced makes this show all the more fantastic to witness! There’s one song they’ve done and it sounds like what I can only describe as ‘Beastie Boys doing blues rock’, very bizarre but very fun and the crowds going wild for it!
I’m spending a lot of this show marvelling at the light set up they’ve got with them, at one point the grid of lights switches to mirrors for a disco ball effect, and next they start moving through shapes to the beat which is just adding into how sucked into the show I am! No sooner do I type that, they use them to create a starry night sky effect too, wow. The variety of different song styles they work through is pretty crazy too, some of them sound almost like the Eurythmics, some of them sound like they could be part of a Zeal & Ardor song, and that’s just to name a couple of them out of many.
I’d only listened to a few songs from these a while back and I probably didn’t get a proper impression for how ridiculously proggy De Staat can be, but this live show has been unreal in the sheer variance of their music. I really can’t overstate how much of this sort I’ve spent with a massive goofy smile on repeatedly saying ‘What the fuck?’, This is absolutely not what I expected this show to be like, it’s WILD. At one point the singer and keys player have a dance off while singing about Pokémon (I was later told it’s a song about voyeurism) while the lights at the back resemble Pokéballs, I don’t even know where to even begin describing this.
As we move to the end of the show, one of their biggest known songs, ‘Witch Doctor’ provokes almost the entire front of the crowd into a massive circle pit, not your usual metalhead type but more of a skank pit? Either way it seems like people have been waiting on this for the whole show, as that was probably the single biggest circle pit I’ve ever actually seen at Academy 3: mental. This whole show has just oozed style and had quite possibly the best light show I’ve seen at a live show in a sub 2000 capacity venue.
De Staat have been unbelievably slick showmen. I’ve been completely blown away by this show; it’s really been something else.
Dank je wel De Staat, het was een super show!
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.