Alice Practice

Last night was the Crystal Castles show at the Double Door, and it was insane.

Jon, my sister Emily, and I grabbed a quick bite to eat at Piece. I highly recommend banana peppers as a choice pizza topping. Then we headed over to the show.

Doors were scheduled to open at 8 with the show set to begin at 9pm. We showed up around 8:30 to witness the largest crowd I have ever seen standing outside waiting to get in. The line was wrapped around the corner into the alley and must have been at least 300 people deep. I guess that's what happens when you offer a free show to hipster 20-somethings. After waiting until 9:45 and giving up all hope of ever getting in, we lucked out. Alana, a waitress at Double Door, and the one responsible for my owning of the 46 inch big screen TV in my living room, was working the door, and after a quick aside to one of her supervisors let us waltz inside. I really do owe her.

While the show was scheduled to start at 9 and I was sure that we had probably missed the opening act, I was wrong. Now we waited another hour and fifteen minutes inside through a DJ set for LMNOP to go on, which was the shitty new industrial project of someone Jon and I used to see in Champaign plays shows as The Idle Hours. Playing a full 40 minute set, he definitely overstayed his welcome. Then it was just another short weight until around midnight for the main event.



In a packed house, with everybody dancing and moving, Crystal Castles put on one of the most energetic shows I have ever seen. While on album, Alice's screaming can get somewhat grating, in the live setting, it just further amped up the raw energy of the room (although Jon would say otherwise who after walking out simply said "It's just not my thing"). As an added bonus, they opened with the remix to Klaxons- Atlantis to Interzone. Other than Ethan on keyboards and synthesizers and Alice on vocals (who loves to crowd surf up front, but can miraculously always find her way back to the stage), live drums were also a propulsive and pleasant surprise. While some of the nuance of the production of the studio recordings were lost, namely a lot of the video game noises, it didn't much matter with the floor literally bouncing to the beat.

While the night was nearly four and a half hours for really only 40 worthwhile minutes, it was quite the show.