by Caitlin Caven

Philadelphia presented Cut Copy with a slight uphill battle. For one, fans had to trudge to the Trocadero in a spitting almost-rain that did more to crush spirits than dampen clothes. For another, the show was curiously under-attended: given the fact that Cut Copy had sold out both the dates prior to and immediately following Philly’s show, the slow trickle of concertgoers to the Troc was surprising.

During opener-opener Heartbreak’s set, the small crowd--further dwarfed by the Troc’s giant dance floor--seemed almost an insult. Come on, Philly, I grumbled in my head, what else are you doing on a Thursday night? Gladly, my disappointment in my city was premature. As The Presets took the stage, a snowball effect happened: with each passing minute, more people appeared. Those people started dancing. And that dancing got more vigorous. By the time Cut Copy filed onstage in a blackout bathed in blue light, the crowd was well primed to surrender themselves to flashing, electric musical escapism. The venue, still surprisingly, never reached capacity, but those devotees in attendance pulled their weight and danced themselves stupid.

Cut Copy’s set carried off with practiced precision—the songs were, by and large, darker, sharper versions of their recorded counterparts, punctuated with flashing lights and thumping bass. Singer/ keyboardist Dan Whitford kept the mostly generic stage patter to a minimum, instead preferring to rabble-rouse. His sharp arm gestures were part Eva Perón, part Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and they achieved their intended effect: he unified the audience into one body that was fixated on his every movement. Early in the set, Whitford solemnly declared, “We can see you. You’d better dance.”  It was a commandment tinged with a threat, but it was an unnecessary entreaty. He didn’t need to tell the crowd twice.

During fan favorites like “Lights and Music”, “Feel the Love”, and “Out There On the Ice”, the collected sea of people bounced with such enthusiasm that the floor seemed to bend under their weight.  The combination of colorful, music-responsive lights, repetitive-and-infectious songs, seamless transitions, and dancing band members converged to send a message: don’t think, just move. The result was a singularly-focused group mind among the couple of hundred people in attendance, a feeling that nothing outside of the Trocadero’s walls existed or mattered.

In the back of the venue, a sound guy was hard at work keeping the technically complicated show afloat. His face was dispassionate and almost-bored seeming, an expression that seemed to project, “This is my job, and I’ve done this a trillion times.” However, while staring intently at the action onstage, checking levels, and turning knobs, he bobbed intently along with the music. His face may have read, “this is my job,” but the rest of him conveyed the message, “this is awesome.” For about an hour, the band chased away the not-quite-storm clouds and overrode all preoccupations with a mixture of thumping bass and hypnotic lights. They affected nearly everybody—sound guy included—on a very primal level. And, oh, blank-mindedness never felt so good.

Cut Copy is on tour now; catch them in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Pomona, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Portland, or Seattle.