Chromeo

After a weekend of scorching heat and earnest indie rock at the Pitchfork Festival, I got some much-needed detox with the act that made me reconsider whether any pleasure is truly guilty. Chromeo’s Fancy Footwork (2007) made my top of the 2000s list for its combination of replay value, versatility, and trashiness, all of which were in evidence at the first show of their Business Casual tour at Washington’s 9:30 Club.

Times when Dave 1’s goofy grin was plastered on his face like a synchronized swimmer: when he was ambling awkwardly back and forth across the stage; when he was singing; in between lines; during instrumental solos; in between songs; especially whenever he grabbed a drumstick and banged away at P-Thugg’s percussion setup. He cracked lame jokes and shouted out, at every possible moment, to the fly ladies and cool dudes in attendance. And by fly ladies and cool dudes I mean a well-behaved group of buff gay nerds, doe-eyed Capitol Hill interns, and young professional couples enjoying a sensible early show on a summer weeknight. Puns on song titles substituted for banter (“With the heat wave, we thought it was a good idea to save some…power…this one is called ‘Don’t Turn The Lights On’!”). He led us in aimless chants of “two step, two step” and stepped back, laughing, marveling at his power over the crowd. It was as if your Econ 101 TA found himself on stage at a sold-out show and was doing his damnedest to make the most of it before getting found out.

P-Thugg, Dave’s partner in electro-crime, struck an equally distinctive pose. His thin chinstrap has grown into a full Islamic cleric beard, a sleeveless white undershirt barely contained his massive paunch, and the tube running from his mouth to the vocoder made it look like he was sucking on a hookah for most of the set. He mostly kept to himself except for a horrible/awesome moment when he and Dave 1 slowly moved toward each other and froze, back to back, jamming on their guitars and mugging at the crowd. During down moments away from the synthesizer, P-Thugg beamed with satisfaction, looking pleased at the sight of so many people enjoying themselves.

If the members of this odd couple have anything in common with each other, it’s the capacity to take themselves completely unseriously, which is what enables them to create such seriously fun music. With some of the cheesiest beats in modern pop and the corniest performance I’ve ever seen in person, they got a wound-up group of DC social and professional climbers not just moving, but arms-in-the-air dancing on a Monday night. The set came to a head during “Fancy Footwork” when the bass intro rumbled through the room and lit a fuse under any remaining stationary holdouts. Dave 1 made garish pointing motions at all the appropriate moments—“Fancy FOOTwork!”, ta-da!—and strutted in place, smiling from ear to ear. P-Thugg played Lowe to Dave 1’s Tennant with that vocoder hose stuck in his gums, eyes bulging, mouth askew, strobe lights reflecting off his round, sweaty shoulders and illuminating the hair crawling out from under his shirt. The crowd cheered and danced. Three encores later, we all wore Dave 1’s shit-eating grin.