Ladytron wraps their Tour in Miami
October 15, 2011
Grand Central, Miami, FL
Written by Brennan Forsyth
Ladytron’s Miami show was the last stop on their tour in support of their latest albumGravity the Seducer, but they showed no sign of fatigue after nearly 20 North American shows since September. The crowd of about 500 packed into Miami’s Grand Central was first treated to New York’s VHS or Beta, who despite their electro-rock leanings have echoes of The Cure in lead guitarist Craig Pfunder’s vocals as well as other post-punk influences heard throughout their 50-minute set.
Ladytron took the stage just after midnight; Helen Marnie dressed in a sheer white blouse with a short black skirt and a black bow in her hair and an apparently pregnant Mira Aroyo wearing a black and red summer dress. As with most Ladytron shows keyboardist Ruben Wu and band founder/guitarist/keyboardist Daniel Hunt took up positions near the back of the stage, leaving Helen and Mira front and center.
The normally reserved Helen told the crowd “This is the last show of our tour, let’s have some fun tonight!” before starting off the show with the intense and soaring “Soft Power” off of Witching Hour and following it up with “International Dateline” from the same album. “Mirage”, a track from the new album that Berlin’s Terri Nunn could have stepped seamlessly into vocal duties on, was up third.
Ladytron’s music is electronic in the organic sense — they use no digital synthesizers, backtracking or sampling on stage and each song is played via a variety of vintage analog keyboards that are occasionally treated with standard guitar effects pedals and a live drummer. None of them move around much, even during instrumental breaks where one of them isn’t playing a keyboard, the level of animation usually gets no more involved than swaying gently to the music against a mic stand or rocking in place and with hands tapping against hips.
Helen wears every bit of each song on her face, often staring off towards the back of the room or making cursory eye contact with people in the crowd nearest her. Perhaps the reason for Ladytron’s often minimal stage presence can be partially attributed to having to manually adjust the pitch, tone and modulation of each instrument between songs, though what they lack in presence is more than made up for by their sound which is as captivating and striking as its two lead vocalists.
Ladytron masterfully shape and bend the inherent warmth of the analog synthesizer into sounds that can be as chilling as they are uplifting, exemplified by following up seriousness of a track such as “High Rise” with the electroclash tinged “True Mathematics” with Mira Aroyo singing the vocals in her native Bulgarian.
Miami received Ladytron warmly and though a lot of the crowd had progressed into their late 20s after perhaps having heard 604 for the first time on college radio or at a warehouse party in the early part of the last decade, the entire crowd was living the moment, cheering loudly between songs and dancing as much as the people to either side would allow. Noticeably absent from the set were earlier songs such as “Playgirl” and “He Took Her to a Movie” but the crowd still got to hear 1999’s “Discotraxx” and the dance floor staple “Seventeen” from their signature album Light & Magic.
Their entire discography was well represented, showcasing their ever evolving sound and the way it has progressed in the last decade and even included their stunning cover of the Death in June song “Little Black Angel.” They closed out the night with the driving “Destroy Everything You Touch”, bringing the musician Sonio on the stage to help out on keyboards before applauding the crowd as they left the stage while the throng returned their gratitude tenfold.
Despite a couple of minor problems with Helen’s keyboard that required the intervention of a tech just before they played the haunting “White Gold” off the new album Ladytron’s performance was as strong as their last few visits to South Florida and hopefully not too far into the future they will be gracious enough to pay Miami another call and show us once again why Brian Eno considers them to be “the best of English pop music.” Here, here!
Set list:
Soft Power
International Dateline
Mirage
Ghost
High Rise
True Mathematics
White Gold
Runaway
Ace of Hz
Little Black Angel (Death In June cover)
Discotraxx
Fighting In Built Up Areas
Seventeen
ENCORE
White Elephany
Destroy Everything You Touch
Photos by Christina Mendenhall
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