Django Django are firmly established as KV favourites – I think this is the third time we’ve seen them in Bristol, and fifth time anywhere. The double denim look being sported by all except singer/ guitarist/ percussionist Vincent Neff is new to us though. They seem like such a natural choice of support for Hot Chip it’s a surprise it hasn’t happened before, but Hot Chip’s Al Doyle later tells us it hasn’t. The set starts with Introduction merging into Hail Bop, Dave Maclean’s drums sounding absolutely immense, and blasts through a few favourites – all taken from the album Django Django – but many of them reworked into longer jams. The new extended middle section to Waveforms is especially good. Unfortunately, support slots are all too brief, but Django Django bring new magic to the songs we know and love.
Hot Chip are also bringing new flavours to the familiar, being joined on this tour by New Young Pony Club drummer Sarah Jones as well as newish drummer Grosvenor, and with singer Alexis Turner eschewing the bank of keyboards for a very rock looking Gibson Firebird on crowd favourite ‘Over and Over‘ . They even throw in a (really cheesy) cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Everywhere late in the set. Actually, a tendency to cheesiness is my main criticism of the show, especially on the more loungey moments like ‘Look At Where We Are‘ from this year’s In Our Heads. The floor fillers do just that though, and the sell-out crowd are clearly pretty happy.