Yahoo! Music Review

Gig played on 18/04/08

"I'm dressed in white noise, you know just what I want", commands Alison Goldfrapp, as "Strict Machine"'s blinding clash of strobes gun the crowd headfirst into tonight's encore. It's an impressive crescendo and one which reminds us how far this group have travelled. But it is also evidence of the 'Madonna syndrome' and a rather contrary riposte to her own actions. Because for much of this evening, the Royal Festival Hall crowd have to grapple with bad sound, an atmosphere straight out of Terminal 5 plus the spectre of Goldfrapp awkwardly juggling multiple personalities.

Just as the Queen of Pop herself was once lampooned for her alchemic stylistic tourettes with the name Oldfrapp, there is a price to pay for such easy, seasonal reinventions, particularly in their informative stages. While these new pastures - swapping the industrial, mirrorball dominatrix of old for bucolic, earthy retreats - has presented few such problems on record with the captivating "Seventh Tree", the live show needs work. Where once there were lascivious equine dancers whipping and winking, now we have an orchestra in fully muted, virginal white-out, led by a short-wearing musical director seemingly about to dash off for the French Open.

Our enigmatic leader, meanwhile, has replaced the high heels for a pink pixie outfit but frequently tonight struggles to cast a spell over her people. "No time to f*ck" might well be a provocative opening line, but "Paper Bag", "A&E" and "Utopia" inspire no such lusty urges in the audience, the vague cinematic tension and angelic chorals constrained by acoustics timidly emanating from the child-friendly speakers. Choruses of "Turn it up!" are, thankfully, soon rewarded and an emphasis on the elegiac, string power of the band's current sonic backing muster a pair of lush triumphs in "Cologne Cerrone Houdini" and a starry-eyed "You Never Know".

Even so, proceedings seem to have thrown the robust, unflappable figure of Alison herself, who fumbles the start of "Road To Somewhere" as the show bids to take flight towards these lofty rafters. It is to Goldfrapp's credit that this happens not to the music of their past but with the psyched-out, kaleidoscopic sound and vision of a euphoric "Little Bird" and the comedown of "Monster Love", its symphonic counterpoint. There is but one more wobble, as the band stagger through an atrocious C&W take on "Oh La La", ignoring the rapturous reception afforded clubbed-up powerhouses "Strict Machine" and "Number One" minutes earlier.

Now we're knee-deep into the encore and "Caravan Girl" and "Clowns" provide the perfect assimilation of Goldfrapp in 2008, Alison tripping through the unbridled bounce of the former before day-dreaming the translucent wonderland of the latter. The best is yet to come, however. Before "Happiness" each member of the audience is given a kazoo, accepting the song's cult brainwash in the most blithe and universal fashion imaginable. Finally we are all playing the same tune, trailing our puzzling pied piper to a world where Alison Goldfrapp will not lose her way.

by Ben Gilbert