Daft Punk: From Paris to Seattle

UPDATE - another video from WaMu Theater, Seattle

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[not my president]

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Daft Punk gets earthlings grooving
Full story:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2003813472_daftpunk31.html

By Jeff Albertson
Special to The Seattle Times

Minutes into French electronic duo Daft Punk's set Sunday night, the capacity
crowd at WaMu Theater had already reached a critical mass of audio and visual
overload.

As the five-tone alien communication from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
played, the sweat-drenched mass on the dance floor greeted Guy-Manuel de
Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter like deities with a thunderous roar and
exuberant cheers.

The cryptic duo, blurring the line between man and machine, wore their familiar
gold and chrome-plated robot helmets and appeared as interplanetary MCs to a sea
of dance-crazed fans.

Undeniably the biggest name in electronic music, Daft Punk refuses to do interviews or be photographed without
the helmets -- a ruse they've been able to uphold for more than 10 years.

At WaMu, perched atop a massive pyramid at center stage and surrounded by a
dazzling display of LED lights, the pair tore through a flawless set of their
most familiar songs. Rather than the traditional DJ set, they reworked skeletal
versions of their songs, remixing snippets from each on the fly.

Daft Punk played versions of songs from all three of their full-length albums,
including early favorites like "Around the Word" from their 1997 debut "Home
Work," but it was "Digital Love" and "One More Time" from "Discovery" that
ignited an already ecstatic crowd. "Robot Rock" and the titular "Human After
All" from their 2005 release further advanced the pair's android theme.

The hyper-stylized blend of electro funk and hard-hitting Chicago house music
kept the crowd of young adults dancing from the front to the back of the theater
for a full hour and a half. Spotted in the crowd were multitudes of glow-sticks and DayGlo accessories,
turning the hangarlike venue into something more like the raves that Daft Punk's
music was meant for.

French electro artists Kavinsky and Sebastian opened the show, followed by New
York-based the Rapture, a band who originally got their start in Seattle.

The Rapture played a rocking set of disco punk that relied on thick,
earth-rattling bass and deep synthesizers. The band, most known for it's
breakout hit "House of Jealous Lovers" easily won over a dance-ready crowd.

Jeff Albertson: 206-464-2304 or [email protected]

[not my president]

Anyone heading to see Daft Punk .. here is a review.
Posted yesterday at 2:09 am by Michael Alan Goldberg

Daft Punk
July 29, 2007
WaMu Theater
Better Than: Everything.

There's really only two words to describe last night's Daft Punk performance at the WaMu Theater: HOLY FUUUUUUUCK! To elaborate, slightly ... it was the best show I've seen in my five years in Seattle, and easily in my Top 10 shows of all time. It was the first time I've been to the WaMu Theater, and despite hearing that the sound there is horrible, Daft Punk sounded phenomenal. And their light show and stage set was out of this world — it was like a Broadway or Las Vegas production of Battlestar Galactica, but even cooler than that sounds. I'll have a longer rundown (and lotsa cool photos I shot) tomorrow, including a bit about my post-show chat with a guy who hitchhiked and train-hopped from New York City for three weeks to make the show (and got arrested twice in the process).

Okay, so I'm a little more rested now, thinking back to last night's show ... and I still stand by my immediate post-gig euphoria: Was definitely, definitely a fantastic, dazzling experience, both musically and visually. As far as a live electro-rock show goes, I'd say Daft Punk outshined past performances I've seen by the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy — two other acts known for their stadium-sized spectacles.

The sold-out all-ages crowd at the cavernous WaMu Theater, which I'm told can hold up to 7,000 fans, was primed for the show — plenty of glowing, shiny rave gear, plus countless people dressed up in their own homemade robot-slash-spaceman-slash-freakazoid get-ups for the occasion. A fair amount of jock/frat/sorority types as well, but everyone seemed to get along — didn't notice too much shoving or fighting, though a lot of people were succumbing to the heat of the dance pit (and/or accompanying substances); it felt like a much larger version of the frenzied LCD Soundsystem show earlier this summer at the Showbox.

The lights went black at 9:45 p.m. and as the theme music to Close Encounters of the Third Kind poured from the speakers, blending with the anticipatory roar of the crowd, the curtains gave way to a giant pyramid covered in LCD screens, flanked by metal latticework. As smoke poured out into the audience and lights of all sorts began to flash, the duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo — decked out in their usual identity-obscuring, robot-slash-spaceman-slash-freakazoid get-ups — were perched inside the pyramid, just under its peak, at the controls like electro-pilots setting the controls for the heart of the beat. Goddamn it looked cool. All sorts of colors and patterns and shapes and images flashing across the screens of the pyramid, the latticework lighting up in various designs, just a total feast for the eyes.

And for the next hour and a half, Daft Punk played everything you could have hoped for. All the hits — "Da Funk," "Around the World," "One More Time," "Robot Rock" — and loads of other tracks culled from their three studio albums. The sound was excellent — so amazing to hear those songs loud and live, the beats and grooves pulsing through the air and slamming into, around, and through your body — and the duo adroitly fashioned musical peaks and valleys, hypnotizing with steady, propulsive throbs and then kicking things into overdrive (and inspiring much singing along and manic dancing) with their jubilant disco-funk. Couldn't have asked for a better time — it was one of those shows where afterward, you could see the huge throngs milling around the streets outside in an ecstatic daze, just wishing it never had to end.

Reporter's Notebook
Personal Bias: I've been into Daft Punk since virtually the beginning; I was actually one of the first U.S. journalists to do a sit-down interview with them — it was at the tail-end of 1996, when I worked for a syndicated radio network that's since been swallowed up by Premiere Radio Networks.
Random Detail: After the show, I chatted for a bit with this guy named Benjamin who'd hitchhiked and train-hopped all the way from New York City — took him three weeks, he said — just to see the show. He explained to me that he's been a Daft Punk fan since he was 10 years old, and seeing them live was a total dream come true. He said that there had originally been 20 people who set out on the Daft Punk odyssey with him, but only two actually made it to the show — the rest got arrested along the way for various reasons; he said he got arrested twice for riding the trains. Good thing they let him go in time to make the show, and I hope he makes it back home stress-free.

Topics: The Morning After

Permalink | Comments (1)

wow, i want to hear that guy's story. did you see all the kids with matching jumpsuits, emblazoned with 'TOUCH IT,' 'BURN IT,' etc on the back? a friend says they were all from edmonton, alberta. !

i thought the sound wasn't loud enough at the beginning but it progressively improved. the only thing better would've been to have the pyramid in the middle of the room, so we could dance around it. :) one more time!

[Hellow CS!]

amazing!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/caesarsebastian/

[slugbug]

Have to have this link on my website

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/44519-photos-daft-punk-seattle-wa-072907

[DiAnne]

This is from DJ Satori of RaversG - enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/DJSatori

Also streaming live, http://www.kexp.org - Wo'Pop, w/DJ Darek Mazzone

[slugbug]

YouTube Comments

nkd29 (14 minutes ago)
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haha you were probably like two feet behind me filming. Such a great show. Minus the fat sweaty retards that kept bumping into me
James1095 (3 weeks ago)
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What a fantastic show, great music, great crowd, amazing lighting effects, I've got no gripes at all.
catfishnine (3 weeks ago)
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That was a fun show.
poolfiend (3 weeks ago)
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Goddamn that was a fun show!
carlota1228 (3 weeks ago)
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Grroooooooovvvvyyy!!!!
EarthToTurtle (3 weeks ago)
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I have more to put up if anyone wants to see - let me know.