Cut Copy heat up the dance floor in LA

By Josh Herwitt //

Cut Copy //
Hollywood Palladium – Los Angeles
April 1st, 2014 //

Is there a band right now that throws a better dance party than Cut Copy?

In 2014, you’d be hard-pressed to find one that can even come close.

Returning to Los Angeles five months after performing at HARD Day of the Dead, the Australian four-piece played its first proper headlining show in the City of Angels since releasing its fourth full-length album Free Your Mind last November.

Though the record may not live up to the same standard set by 2011’s Zonoscope and 2009’s In Ghost Colours, there are enough winners on 2013’s Free Your Mind for Cut Copy, as a band and not just as a DJ project, to keep their all-encompassing setlists from growing moldy.

At the Hollywood Palladium, the electropop extraordinaires dug into their new material right away, opening with their latest hit “We Are Explorers” before dolling out five other songs from the 14-track LP on Modular Recordings.

And while it may have been a school night for some, it sure didn’t feel like it inside the historic ballroom.

With fan favorites “Take Me Over” and “Hearts on Fire” coming within the first 30 minutes of its set, Cut Copy had a dance-happy crowd of mostly 20-somethings moving and grooving in a matter of no time.

But what may have been the biggest highlight of the night was how well newer cuts like “Let Me Show You Love” and “Meet Me in a House of Love” on Free Your Mind translated to a live setting. Because even after seeing Cut Copy twice in 2011, I walked out the Palladium’s front doors late Tuesday night feeling just as good as I did those previous two times.

In fact, if there was any drawback to note, it was that we didn’t get a few more songs out of frontman Dan Whitford and his bandmates on the final night of their North American tour. Whitford, all things considered, knows how to energize an audience as well as anyone out there these days, whether it’s with his old-school dance moves or incessant hand clapping.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Cut Copy took its encore break right after unleashing “Lights and Music”, the band’s most successful single to date still. So, when Whitford (vocals, keyboards, guitar), Tim Hoey (guitar, sampler, percussion, vocals), Mitchell Scott (drums, vocals) and of course Ben Browning (bass, keyboards, vocals) left the stage for a couple of minutes in what served as an encore break, they instantly had their fans begging to hear more.

The two-song encore that ensued, nevertheless, offered a snapshot of the band’s current disposition, as it left us with one more tune off Free Your Mind — the oscillating, yet also comforting “Walking in the Sky” — before closing things out with the 80’s-laced anthem “Need You Now.”

It was a fitting ending for a band that has come a long way since dropping its debut album Bright Like Neon Love a decade ago, yet isn’t looking to ease off the gas pedal any time soon.

Setlist:
We Are Explorers
Take Me Over
Free Your Mind
Where I’m Going
In Memory Capsule
So Haunted
Hearts on Fire
Saturdays
Feel the Love
Out There on the Ice
Let Me Show You Love
Meet Me in a House of Love
Lights and Music

Encore:
Walking in the Sky
Need You Now