Friday 09/11/07, Justice, Klaxons, MSTRKRFT @ Le Zenith, Paris

As part of the week long ‘LesInrocks Festival’, tonight is the D.A.N.C.E –esque bill, headlined by Justice in front of their home crowd – I say ‘their’, because the crowd is here just for them.

MSTRKRFT kick the night off, one half of the duo has motorbike handles for a moustache and is a bit of a cliché swigging from his uber-large whisky bottle, pumping his hand in the air while puffing awaying on copius amounts of fags adding to the layer of smog hovering over the crowd. He’s loving it, havin’ it large or whatever. But so are we. Playing a mix of their own songs such as ‘Easy Love’ (think Daft Punk shagging those girls in the video for Benni Benassi ‘Satisfaction’ . Filth.) and spin some remixes of Daft Punk and Justice, teasing us with whats to come.

Change of pace with Klaxons, while the hype and love for their just released debut has already drummed up somekind of fanbase, some of the folk here are thinking, “Zee Klaxons? Who eez ziz?" (insert bad french accent here). The front crowd is like a swarm of straight-edge fluo-kids with glo sticks, thankfully no tectonic dancing in sight, but the distant memory of Saturday afternoons at Glasgow central station spring to mind, fearing that the youths will rob me of my Nikes or laugh at my unstraightened hair or something emo like that. Showing that they probably skived french classes at school, Klaxons manage the odd “ça va” and “merci”*. ‘Atlantis to Interzone’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ set of mini riot pits and ‘Golden Skans’ is chanted back inunison; french style and out of synch. Humourous all the same. Great set, too big a venue, but we’re left feeling why, drummer Steffan, why did you borrow your kid sister’s sparkly leotard for the occasion?

As the kids seem to disappear as its past their bedtime, the ‘olds’ come out of the woodwork for Justice. Now, befire starting, its inevitable that such parallels are going to be drawn with Daft Punk, both being Parisien based dance duos, one sometimes sounding like the other.... so we’ll treat it as blasphemous so as not to bore you, and from here on in,  when ‘they who cannot be named’ are mentioned, we’ll sling some Euros in the Daft Punk swear jar. Oh bugger....

You might be mistaken for thinking its some kind of Chrisitan rock concert, for their golden cross logo is a blazing light on stage. However, I moutache you a question, what’s with the tache wearing fashion and leather jacket Motley Crue outcast look youre going for? All this aside, they kick off with ‘D.V.N.O’ and some ‘Waters of Nazareth’. Then stopping – not mixing – before launching into ‘We Are Your Friends’. But you know exactly what everyone is anticipating, and when it’s finally played, its like one big massive ‘D.A.N.C.E’ party, canons spew out gold shiny confetti. It can never be overplayed and the french love it like it was their national anthem.

For an upside down night of early doors clubbing and everyone stealing and playing one anothers music, dare we say it, MSTRKRFT may have stolen the thunder. Though in areas they ressemble the untouchable Daft Punk, at least Justice do exactly what they say on the CD sleave, and that’s D.A.N.C.E.