Ah, Alison Goldfrapp! You’re never quite sure which is going to be more spectacular, the sensual, sleazy, breathy disco, or the over the top costumes that make every girl and probably quite a lot of the boys think ‘WANT’ simultaneously. This show is backdropped with a huge inflatable archway, band members in assorted colours of Spandex, and of course Ms Goldfrapp herself, resplendent behind a wind machine where she positions herself, her mass of golden curls and cape crammed with strips of black sparkly stuff catching the breeze like a sexily robotic Marilyn Monroe.
The sultry opener ‘Crystalline Green’ is greeted with excitement, but with a laid back version of ‘You Never Know’ and a sumptuously Carpenter’s-like ‘Head First’, it takes until ‘Number 1’ for the atmosphere to reach hands-in-the-air levels of fervour. Alison’s not been particularly chatty up until then, but as the lights flash up, a sudden grin of enjoyment spreads across her face and from then on in it all just works, the heavier and funkier tunes - ‘Alive’, ‘Believer’ and ‘Train’ - coming thick and fast, all the while prowling the stage and working the ruffling cape in the wind.
But we’re not enjoying ourselves enough yet! They launch into ‘Ooh La La’ with cries of ‘prove yourselves Leeds!’ - which of course we do, because it’s a cracking tune and we like to dance. The band dash off for a quick change and Alison arrives back on stage wearing a gold sequin ruffled construction, to give a tender, theatrical rendition of ‘Black Cherry’, and then another change into luxurious black feathers for the spookily trippy ‘Lovely Head’ which she sings with the magnetism of a Greek siren. Finally, she finishes with ‘Strict Machine’, the blinding lighting and still-blowing wind machine reinforcing the illusion that Goldfrapp are a filmic, electrodisco, seventies-obsessed force of nature.
Words by Elly Oracle
Photo by Danny Payne
View an accompanying photo gallery of Goldfrapp live HERE.