Purity Ring have mastered the dangling-keys sleight. Similar to an irreverent toddler or an idiot crow, I’m easily distracted by bright lights and pretty colors (and booze, plenty of booze). When you reduce Purity Ring to their essence, the entire musical aspect is Corin Roddick on Ableton with a synth and Megan James flitting around on stage singing. In any other case, this would be boring as shit. However, they bring one of the best sets of dangling keys to the table: a massive branching network of 20 light-up cocoons responding to both music and the movements of Megan James. After four or so gin and tonics, the Purity Ring live experience felt weirdly similar to when I would get too hyperactive when I was 5 and my grandma would put on Fantasia. In both instances, I shut up immediately and watched.
Unfortunately for opener Blue Hawaii, also consisting of a dude (Alexander Cowan) on synth/sampler and a chick (Raphaelle Standell-Preston) running around singing, they did not have a wild light-up tree to distract people from the fact their show is basically a DJ set. Ergo, the experience felt like a lanky guy who looked weirdly similar to DJ Qualls and a girl who looked like one of the violinists in Arcade Fire trying to fill out The Metro, one of the best live venues in Chicago. The effect was underwhelming.
Purity Ring, however, made up for the boring-ass first 40 minutes of my time spent at this show. The crowd was way more eclectic than I’d envisioned. I was expecting a herd of attractive vacuous faces clad in overpriced neons from American Apparel; what I got was these same people interspersed with dudes in True Religion jeans and Wrigleyville beezys who look like they have memberships at Flirty Girl Fitness. I swear to god there was a couple in their 50s. Whatever. Anyway, the trap bass rattle, epileptic lights, and Megan James wandering around the stage in some sort of weird wedding dress (she makes her own clothes; I had an internal dialogue the entire show over whether or not she made it) kept me entertained for an hour, which is all I ever wanted. Oh, and there was a Soulja Boy cover. Let that be the rest of my life: Soulja Boy covers and Blue Hawaiians.