La Roux
La Roux
O2 ABC, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
Five years is a long time in pop music. Where La Roux's last O2 ABC visit came before a sold-out crowd and confirmed Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid as one of pop's hottest acts, this appearance was in front of a smaller (though wildly enthusiastic) audience, and emphasised the many changes that have taken place since then.
Langmaid has departed, for one, and if La Roux was always focused around Jackson's androgynous looks then it's firmly a solo vehicle now, even if she was aided by a backing band. Her sound has shifted somewhat, with the icy nature of her debut veering towards warmer climes on this year's Trouble In Paradise record.
That meant the crowd's call of "La Roux, La Roux, La Roux is on fire" seemed appropriate, with Jackson dancing away and manoeuvring herself around the stage all night. Her best songs gave her room to groove, with Let Me Down Gently sounding plucked from a hip New York club in the mid 1980s, and the Bowie-referencing Uptight Downtown an excitable, dancefloor-friendly concoction.
Yet there was something off about some of the other numbers, especially those from the shriller first album. Quicksand suffered from a stodgy mix, Colourless Colour's blaring synth-pop was simply headache-inducing and new tune Kiss And Not Tell took those 1980s inspirations too far, sounding like a discarded Madonna tune.
The performance was therefore most satisfying when it unashamedly pursued euphoric pop, most notably on the mid-set double-header of Sexotheque and Cruel Sexuality, the former a relationship breakdown presented as seductive chant-a-long, the latter a tune that was powered by some terrific bass.
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