Live review: The xx, Warpaint at the Hollywood Palladium
Oliver Sim, Romy Madley-Croft and Jamie Smith impress and show confidence; ascendant local band Warpaint opens.
In the middle of their set Wednesday night at the Hollywood Palladium, the xx announced that this was the first tour it's been on where all members could legally drink. “Cheers,” singer-bassist Oliver Sim intoned, before taking a bird-like sip.
It was a succinct reminder that Londoners Sim, singer-guitarist Romy Madley-Croft and programmer Jamie Smith have put scant years between dreaming in their bedrooms — one imagines a collective chamber covered in vintage Depeche Mode posters — and winning prestigious British award the Mercury Prize for their impeccable self-titled 2009 debut album of minimalist synth-pop.
The show, opened by Warpaint, local rising stars whose Rough Trade debut will be released in October, also functioned as a succinct reminder of the raw potency of teenage dreams, endless fodder for bleeding hearts bent over their Casiotones. There is longing for sex, money and power, but when the xx closes its eyes, it sees intimacy.
Clad in all black, Madley-Croft stood out front on the stage, surrounded only by a few smoke-filled cones of light, singing the first few lines of “Shelter,” a song about finding closeness and the insecurity that comes when it's all too easily threatened. There was little more than a few scratches at the bass and guitar to pad Madley-Croft's conversational vocals. Her voice is one of the band's best assets — velvety but still modest, a precision instrument perfect for delivering pillow talk for goths.