Brooklyn based psychedelic rockers, CHAPPO, rocked out at
The Pike Room at Pontiac’s The Crofoot on Monday night along with Parade of
Lights and Royal Teeth. CHAPPO are currently on the road in support of their
brilliant soon to be released sophomore effort, Former Future
Self, which is slated for a May release. Lead singer, the eccentric Alex Chappo, has
a larger than life on-stage persona, which meshes together perfectly with their
style of genre-defying rock and roll. CHAPPO’s music is a cosmic blend of psych,
indie, and electronic music. CHAPPO delivered one of my favorite live
performances that i’ve recently seen from an on-the-rise band. During much of
his time on stage, Alex Chappo hides in the fog from fog machine which he
controls, sometimes even walking around with the fog machine. CHAPPO was also
joined on stage by a trippy, psychedelic LED moon, confetti sticks and psychedelic
lighting. Their live performance was somewhat reminiscent of The Flaming Lips most recent performances or an even
weirder David Bowie.
The band received the biggest response during “Come Home”,
best known for the iPod commercial that it was featured in and their recent
single, “I Don’t Need The Sun”. Music from their new album, Former Future Self, also seemed to
receive a very warm response from the audience. Their instrumental arrangements
sounded quite sharp on Monday evening, even with plenty of exhilarating changes
from their recorded versions. CHAPPO may be playing tiny theaters now as they
hone their craft and perfect their live show, but I imagine they’ll be playing
much larger venues within a few years’ time.
Royal Teeth, hailing from New Orleans, seemed to have had quite a large fan
base in the house on Monday night due to non-stop touring in the Detroit
market. They played songs off of their recent album, Glow, and even threw in a cover of The Knife’s “Heartbeats”. During
the performance of their hit single “Wild”, the audience went just that. In the course of their set they performed several new tracks which they've been working on including the radio-ready song "Rich". Royal Teeth's vocalists, Nora Patterson and Gary Larson, seem to share vocal duties on every song, while still playing other instruments. Royal
Teeth are sure to gain more and more momentum with their non-stop work ethic
