Goldfrapp Live

Goldfrapp played the TLA last night shrouded the entire time by a heavy artificial fog, tearing through a greatest hits survey of singles from seven albums. The fog was like Alison Goldfrapp’s sometimes-breathy voice, rubbing up against the kidney-shaking low end of the synthesizers.

Lights of different colors gave the fog some different shadings and moods. For the relatively serene openers “Utopia” and “Lovely Head,” the stage was lit in pastel to look like the sunrise breaking through the morning mist. On the latter song, the creepy whistle intro gave way to Alison singing into some kind of microphone (don’t know the technical term) that made her voice sound like a distorted electric guitar.

Bright white lights broke into the mist, looking like stabs of lightning through the clouds during the heavy sleaze of “Train” and great new single “Anymore.” These songs followed up with the weirdly cathartic new track “Ocean” started the show off on the best possible note, almost front-loading the setlist. There were plenty of selections from the new album, Silver Eye, and I was happy to see plenty of songs from Supernature, the new album’s twin in trashy, throbbing dance music.

The light through the fog switched to a murky green for mellower songs like “You Never Know,” almost looking like a light shining below the surface of a pool after dark. At times it turned rosy for romantic, warm songs like “Number 1.”

Most of the night, the light and fog had the effect of a smoky club, a perfect visual backdrop of Goldfrapp’s off-kilter club stomp. The show ended in the only way it could have, with the trashy, can’t-sit-still “Ooh La La,” the frenetic “Ride a White Horse” and the thunderous, overheated “Strict Machine.”   

It struck me that Alison’s voice is exactly the same live as on record. I also noticed that aside from a few extended intros and endings, they played the music pretty much exactly as on the albums. I could have used a little more embellishment, but it was a great, no-nonsense hour and a half of greatest hits.