- Like a younger cousin you only see every couple of years, each Chromeo appearance following an album release is bigger, noisier and decidedly less cute. From their early shows in the mid-'00s, playing to packed basements and function rooms, to subsequent tours through mid-sized and intimate venues, the duo's set has grown along with the crowds and the clamour. However, in arriving at this point—at the 3,000-capacity strong Roundhouse—it seems as if their surroundings have outgrown their ability to fill them.
The general mood of the venue, both outside and in, was that of people who were going to party like it was 1989, as crowds of high-waisted jeans, hooped earrings, neon clothes and short asymmetrical Annie Lennox-like haircuts swarmed in from the wet winter's evening outside into the Roundhouse's bright, sterile and linoleum-lined foyer. Inside the venue proper, the sea of excitable thirtysomethings stretched out to the very limits of the circular room. The continued airplay of "Fancy Footwork" on a hair wax advert seems to have brought a whole new breed of fan to the table, as the fresh-faced teens have now been replaced by older and plainer fare, as if offices across London had spewed forth legions of legal secretaries and insurance brokers into this grandiose cavern. Up above, the Shakespearean sweep of seating mezzanine and the ring of columns that support it serve to bring a certain closeness to what would otherwise be an agoraphobia-inducing space.
It was thus that Dave-1 and P-Thugg took to the stage, their mannequin-legged synth stands at the fore and three Chromettes bringing up the rear. Immediate renditions of "I'm Not Contagious," "Tenderoni" and "Call Me Up" elicited cheers and dancing. The performance itself differed little to their last appearance in London at the Shepherds Bush Empire over two years ago, from P-Thugg's massive beard to Dave-1's, snappy suit and Serge Gainsbourg-like 5 o'clock shadow, to the delightfully cheesy banter—"all you ladies are Chromettes tonight!" Apart from questionable sound at times, with Dave-1's voice slipping into a mid-range mess on certain tracks, their charm and charisma remain firmly intact, with this set being as fun and sexy as you would expect it to be.
Despite this, and despite the fact that they had drawn a near full capacity crowd who hung on every electro-tinged note, the occasion seemed to dwarf them somehow. Other acts to have graced The Roundhouse stage over the last year—from Deadmau5 to The Chemical Brothers and more recently HEALTH—have managed to shrink the space, putting on spectacles that were all-encompassing and colossal, yet intimate at the same time. Chromeo have lost none of their swagger, yet in comparison this performance seemed small and slightly limp. So while the performance was decent, had it been transplanted into somewhere smaller where interaction between them and the crowd was more easily facilitated, then it would have been improved immeasurably.