Goldroom played their final East coast stop of their first tour as a live band Saturday night at Brooklyn Bowl. Rather than Josh Legg’s typical Goldroom DJ set, he was joined by female front-woman Mereki Beach and drummer Nick Sandler (formally of Chasing Kings) for an intimate yet brief late night.
From 1 AM to 2 AM Brooklyn felt more like summertime in Los Angeles as calming synth hummed over disco bass grooves and catchy pop vocals. The crowd mainly consisted of extremely attractive females and exceptionally well groomed men. No one of the dance-floor was raging, just shuffling along to soft indie-electronica.
The band played originals such as “Morgan’s Bay” and “Only You Can Show Me”, a cover by Elliot Smith, and a few of Goldroom’s popular remixes. The live band stuck true to Legg’s DJ sound. Mereki and Legg switched playing the keys and guitar and Mereki had her own drum part at one point. Although I am pleased the move from DJ set to live performance, it would have been nice to see some more experimentation musically.
Once the word live is tagged onto what typically is just a DJ set, expectations rise and unfortunately this Goldroom LIVE show left me feeling unsatisfied. All this short and sweet pop set needed was a little spice. The music works well for the usual DJ set and all the members of the band are talented so maybe it is too soon to judge Goldroom’s live performance…after all, it was the bands debut tour.