Haven’t had time or, frankly, been motivated to write about recent shows, but let me start by saying, DAMN that was fun. All the fun of a live band, and that band is playing house music. Plus, Nectar is very small — this meant I had more hipster B.O. to deal with, but it reminded me of seeing Calvin Harris at the little Echo a few years ago.

The energy was amazing — drummer wailing away, Juan (is his name actually Juan?) banging on different percussion implements and even some sort of pitchfork thing that I couldn’t even figure out. All I know, he would wave one hand over it like a band leader while the other vibrato’d like a cellist. It was hot. The annoying asian chick from the Soulwax documentary even got less annoying. Every song was good fun, and they finished up the set with Happy House, naturally. Except it was an epic 20-minute hyperdrive version of it that just wouldn’t end. This also came just after the hipster in front of me left, whose only dance move the entire set had been to elbow my drink like Don Flamenco from Tyson’s Punch-Out, so needless to say I was very excited.

Another thought I had been stewing on since we saw The Twelves back in March was the “live” versus “DJ set” comparison. Everything is steering more toward production, but I have to say, I was underwhelmed by The Twelves’ performance. I love all their tracks, but two dudes sitting behind a laptop for an hour just didn’t keep me on the edge of my seat. With a DJ set, I don’t know what’s going to come next. A master could throw anything at me. Now, after seeing Prodigy and TJM, it was interesting to observe the differences between a live act and an “Ableton Live” act. (You’re not as cool as you think you are, Deadmau5).

I still think a DJ can generate just as much an energy as a band; to a certain extent, just rocking out on stage gets the ball rolling. Personally, I want to work Ableton into the DJ arsenal to expand beyond playing one track after the next, no matter how seamless the transitions are. But dude behind a laptop undertaking minimal cueing on a pre-planned Ableton set is hardly a “live” show just because one is not using decks.

And with that, OoC got out his little rant AND a concert review in one post. Do yourself a favor and listen to Happy House again. So good.