When a group of musicians come together, they often are bonded by homogeneous performance styles.
Tenacious D, comprising of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, seeks to entertain just as much through its silly antics as it does its equally humorous music. The legendary band Kiss wouldn’t be the same if its members didn’t don outlandish makeup and act like absolute yet lovable weirdos. Nearly every indie rock band you’ll come across will be energetic enough to keep the audience engaged but aloof enough to appear despondently mysterious.
But AlunaGeorge, an electronic music duo from England, marches to the beat of its own drum — both individually and as a group.
In front of a sold-out crowd at U Street Music Hall on Tuesday night, Aluna Francis slinked across the venue’s cramped stage, sinuously moving her hips and flashing sly smirks to the overjoyed fans huddled before her. Francis, the group’s vocalist and songwriter, winked at a jumping teenage boy before seductively reaching down and grabbing her crotch, an action met with uproarious cheers. She would often hold her microphone out into the crowd, asking audience members to show off their pipes.
George Reid, the duo’s producer, was as stiff as Francis was lively. He tensely stood in front of a soundboard, rapidly twisting and turning dials. It was as if Reid was alone in the studio, laboriously concocting electronic beats, instead of standing before an energized crowd of admirers. Aside from the occasional grin to Francis, his face was expressionless and suggested a certain detachment to the environment around him.
There was far from a lack of chemistry between the two, however. If the duo was a human being, Reid, with his unorthodox dance beats and calm demeanor, was the skeleton, and the dynamo that is Francis was the skin. Reid set the foundation, and Francis provided the embellishment. Francis was undoubtedly the dazzling vessel for the music — as well as the heart and soul of the group — but Reid acted as the anchor that kept it in place.
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The two, along with a drummer to their right, proved that those differences are insignificant when the music is good.
And good it was.
In a little more than an hour, the duo navigated through the gems in its “futuristic pop” discography, while interweaving a handful of collaborations with big-name artists that elevated them from a nameless entity to an indie group on the precipice of mainstream recognition.
The group’s opening performance of “Attracting Flies,” one of the 14 tracks off its debut album Body Music, was a summation of everything that is right about AlunaGeorge. Francis’ melodic vocals projected a poppy vibe over Reid’s lo-fi grooves that embrace quirks and unconventionality. The song’s resourceful lyricism — “Everything you exhale is attracting flies,” a double entendre that could also come across as “attractive lies” — highlighted the depth of the group’s style that extends far beyond danceable bass drops.
Those drops and the synthy supplements that went along with them were unequivocally the main attraction for those in attendance. The audience unabashedly danced their hearts out during the relentless looping beats of “Supernatural” and the heavy bass thuds of “Toca Me,” which featured Francis intently tapping away at a soundboard.
At times, the instrumentation was so boisterously loud that it drowned out Francis’ tender vocals, a disappointing occurrence considering the splendid talent she possesses. That could be attributed to the sound system at U Street, or it could be a reflection of AlunaGeorge’s vision for its sonics. In a way, that indiscernible mixture of vocals and electronic elements is what makes the group’s music so unique. After all, Francis’ singing — often computerized to blend in with dance breaks — and Reid’s production are so intertwined that one cannot exist without the other.
Even when performing collaborations — the most recognizable being DJ Snake’s remake of “You Know You Like It” and Disclosure’s “White Noise” — the duo established its autonomy as self-sufficient artists. During “You Know You Like It,” the duo played its original production on verses and switched to DJ Snake’s refined adaptation for the choruses, a compromise that gave the audience what they were waiting for while affirming AlunaGeorge’s devotion to its handiwork. Its performance of “White Noise” remained unaltered, but Francis made it her own as she resolutely belted soaring vocals.
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Aside from the standard “You guys are awesome!” that all artists are seemingly required to shout multiple times, nothing about the night seemed contrived or solely for show. Sometimes Francis seemed a tad youthful and unpolished, and Reid could benefit from some more personality, but by and large the concert seemed to be the authentic expression of two artists driven by their personal convictions.
Whether or not AlunaGeorge will maintain its growing relevance depends on how much Francis and Reid are willing to adapt their offbeat style. Judging from Tuesday’s show, they are flexible to a point but unwilling to compromise too much. No matter what path they choose, however, they are almost certain to continue accruing worthwhile music — all that really matters in the end.
