La Roux – Glasgow ABC

La Roux

November 16th 2009

You don’t need an introduction to La Roux (although, if you think that’s the name of the singer, I’m afraid you’re mistaken). You know all about the hits, and Elly Jackson’s quiff. If you don’t, well, just what rock have you been living under? What you might not realise is just how incendiary she can be live. This writer knew he liked Jackson and, mysterious producer, Ben Langmaid’s particular brand of poptastic angst before the gig, but not to the extent he left with.

The lights drop and the sound that engulfs the venue is deafening – not from the stage, but from the suddenly possessed (mainly female) youths that make up the majority of the crowd. The band (sans Jackson, and for that matter, the rarely seen Langmaid) takes to the stage before Jackson propels herself into the fray, to further rapturous shrieks and screams.

Tune after tune unfolds; ‘I’m Not Your Toy’, ‘Quicksand’, ‘In For The Kill’, delivered in a manner that belies the dual natures of Jackson’s persona – confident pop goddess and emotionally bruised chanteuse. What occurs during this intense and entrancing performance, is that she is in many ways a combination of two seemingly very different Eighties idols (of course imbued with a very distinct sense of individuality, to say otherwise would be something of a disservice) – Annie Lennox and Morrissey. She combines androgyny with a distinct type of femininity, a wholly magnetic and somewhat melodramatic stage presence. The fact she is in a duo and has red hair, a quiff, underlines the comparison (again, that is not to say she is not an individual icon in the making – she is anything but).

The light show might be dazzling, the presentation slick, but the wholly unchoreographed and, technically speaking, not entirely flawless performance of Jackson exemplifies her and Langmaid’s group as an honest and unmanufactured enterprise, which in turn makes La Roux all the more special. The encore is, somewhat predictably (it’s the only song they have left to play), ‘Bulletproof’, but it’s a perfect slice of pop to end a wholly rounded pop concert experience, hysterical shrieks and all.

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