Klaxons, 7.10 @ the El Rey

Klaxons came back to the United States for another tour (it'd only been two and a half months!), and I was fortunate enough to catch them in Los Angeles, sit down for dinner, and see the spectacular show!

(As an aside, there will be footage of the whole hang-out/dinner with the band at Anthem Magazine's site where we're debuting a new series of impromptu/unorthodox/unusual filmed non-interviews with bands ... Klaxons will be the first.)

The venue was packed, packed, packed -- I've never seen anything like it at the El Rey! -- and man the crowd was wild. If anything, the group was 200 times more on the ball than their previous LA performance: a bafflingly tight show, which is rare with a group like Klaxons or any band for that matter!
The four members were also more showy: never did they stay too rigid or stand in the same place for too long, and Simon in particular couldn't stay over in his "area" of the stage, running back and forth between his mic and the drum stand while still finding time to reach out to the audience for a group tugging and grabbing.
The set list included plenty o' hits -- from "Golden Skans" to "Two Receivers" to "Not Over Yet" -- to old standbys like "The Bouncer." It was well paced and expertly done. Indeed, Klaxons have sky-rocketed up my list of favorites. For those of you who only heard the remixes or paid little attention to the album, Myths of the Near Future, I highly recommend going back and hearing the thing in its entirety. It's a beautifully produced and structured piece that works spectacularly as an album in its own right and truly is noteworthy of setting the stage for a bona fide Next Big Thing.

Check out the pictures I took here.

Klaxons - Hall of Records (James Ford Session)
Klaxons - Golden Skans (Black Session)