Lovelife and Gold Fields at Irving Plaza 5/9/13

Lovelife and Gold Fields

Irving Plaza

May 9, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, i was with my buddy Abdul to catch two electro pop acts making their – British up-and-coming act Lovelife and Australian sensation, Gold Fields, who were fresh off their recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. And although I suspect that a great deal of the audience was there for headlining act, Capital Cities, I’m personally convinced that there were a few people there after catching the Australian band on national TV. (A minor disclosure: I’ve seen Capital CIties before when they opened for St. Lucia and Big Black Delta at Brooklyn Bowl last year, and although they had a very energetic set, I wasn’t super impressed by their music much, and didn’t particularly care to catch them again. So, I stopped in a bar with my buddy and then called it a night. Hey, it happens.)

But i digress a bit.

Lovelife’s live sound made it pretty evident that one of their primary influences was the slickly produced, synth-based R&B of the 80s – think Quiet Storm but somehow lacking the sweat, blood and lust of it’s major influences. And although initially the material may have sounded incredibly catchy, after a while it made their set seem a little wearying; in particular, their songs quickly started to sound almost indistinguishable to me. What was even stranger was that they really didn’t do much in the way of introducing any of their material or themselves – they did thank the crowd for being awesome. And I can say that the crowd was pretty awesome because they really were there to have fun and shake their asses for a few hours. Still, in some way, the fact their relatively short set ended was a bit of relief to me.

Gold Fields came on the stage afterward, and their set felt a bit more polished. Sonically, I was reminded of acts like Editors and the Killers but more percussive. One of their songs at the end of their set employed the use of cowbell – to the point that I was reminded of Echoes-era the Rapture. They sounded really good but at the end of the day, it wasn’t the most original thing i’ve ever heard either.

Check out some photos below.

Lovelife