La Roux at UEA
Pitch perfect pop with a hearty splash of colour.
Friday Night at the UEA’s LCR and La Roux, aka singer Elly Jackson, she of the trademark red quiff and startling falsetto, enters the stage through moody blue shadows and kicks off the gig with a haunting rendition of yearning track ‘Let Me Down Gently.’ This start is a great reminder why La Roux is still such a hit. The purity of her vocals is fantastic.
‘Thank you all for sticking around,’ she comments later in the set, ‘I’ll try not to be so long next time,’ alluding to the five year gap between 2009’s hit debut ‘La Roux’ and this year’s ‘Trouble in Paradise.’ During that break she split from her longtime collaborator, record producer Ben Langmaid, suffered from stage fright and reportedly hated being suddenly thrust into the spotlight. However I’m happy to report that this is a fantastic return to form.
Her admission of gratitude is a strikingly coy and cute moment from a performer who can come across as quite self-contained. La Roux dances with her head lowered, sliding from side to side in a school disco style shuffle but doing so with such intensity that you feel compelled to watch. She manages to be both fetchingly awkward and hypnotic with her androgynous swagger.
The clear cut electro beats and synth heavy sound that characterised hits like ‘In For The Kill’ and ‘I’m Not Your Toy’ are present and correct. Those older tracks still sounded fresh and sharp and got a great reaction from the audience. Songs from the new album have a less pared back sound, incorporating catchy disco beats with a calypso twist (particularly ‘Sexotheque’ and ‘Tropical Chancer’) and some classic 80s keyboard in ‘Silent Partner.’ I particularly loved the guitars in ‘Uptight Downtown’, a homage to the iconic riff in David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance.’
These ‘80's meets tropical’ influences are reflected by the stage production too. The backdrop is a blown up version of the album cover for ‘Trouble in Paradise’, a fluorescent beach scene with surf board and palm trees. La Roux is looking sharp in a tight fitting black top and white forties-style pleated suit trousers and her band is similarly suited and booted. Best of all, La Roux is not afraid of a good light show. She’s bathed in a flood of red at some points, drenched in quick moving pastels at others. It was Duran Duran during ‘Rio’ with a hint of ‘Club Tropicana.’
Overall, it was great show, pitch perfect pop with a hearty splash of colour that ended with a storming encore of La Roux’s number one hit ‘Bullet-proof’.
