By: Ella Grace
CHICAGO– On Friday, April 4th, Caravan Palace brought electro swing to a packed crowd at Chicago’s House of Blues. In fact, it was so full, I could barely see the stage. My first time at the venue, I was immediately struck by its maximalist decor. Every wall was covered in colorful, eclectic, kitschy art, including paintings, statues, and even religious iconography.
Electro swing is a subgenre of electronic dance music (EDM) that mixes jazz influence, usually in the form of samples, with house music. Hailing from France, Caravan Palace is probably the most popular electro swing group to date. One of my go-to artists in middle school, Caravan Palace has not been a consistent presence in my playlists more recently, so when I saw their current tour included Chicago, I got excited for a little nostalgia trip. Middle school Ella dreamed of seeing them live.
As the lights came down and the show began, a long recorded music intro kept the audience in anticipation before the band came out on stage, opening with a jazz manouche-inspired track. The six-member ensemble included Arnaud “Vial” de Bosredon on guitar and synths, Charles Delaporte on bass and synths, Martin Berlugue on trombone, Lucas Saint-Cricq on saxophone, Zoé Colotis on lead vocals and clarinet, and Paul-Marie Barbier on keyboards, percussion, and electric vibraphone. Throughout the show, all of the musicians doubled on other instruments, showcasing their multi-talented prowess. In addition to producing the music, they also all contributed to the visual aspect of the show with coordinated dance moves throughout.
Lead singer Zoé Colotis also pulled off multiple costume changes. Starting off in a sparkly black oversized jacket, she later took it off to reveal a sparkly silver romper. Towards the end of the show, she added a black blazer over the top of that, and fit in one more costume change to a black leather mini skirt and sheer black blouse. She showcased these all against a static backdrop of the male instrumentalists in matching white collared short-sleeve shirts. The final visual element that tied everything together was some exceptionally detailed and dynamic lighting.
Caravan Palace performed many of their big hits from across multiple albums throughout their discography including “Black Betty,” “Rock It For Me,” and “Fool.” They performed several tracks from their album titled <l°_°l> including “Wonderland,” “Midnight,” and “Aftermath,” as well as their number one top track “Lone Digger.” I think the woman next to me spoke for many in attendance when she shouted “Oh! This is my favorite song!” as they began that track.
With bumping disco/house beats, the jazz influence came across mostly through samples, walking basslines, horn solis, and swing feel. In jazz, the same tune generally doesn’t sound exactly the same twice, due to the improvisational nature of the music. As a result, live performances usually do not sound exactly like recorded versions of the same songs by the same artists. The goal of the performance is to spontaneously create something new.
Conversely, Caravan Palace’s performance stuck very close to their recorded tracks, replicating them almost exactly, which is impressive in its own right and is often very hard to do well. They relied heavily on samples and other pre-recorded material to achieve this, and the live instrumentation acted almost more as decoration on top rather than the core sound all of the time, to no degradation of the overall energy of the performance.
It can be challenging to perfectly mix so much live instrumentation, acoustic and electric, with so much pre-recorded audio, and initially, I was disappointed with the overall sound. The horns and vocals sounded a bit muddy, and I could barely hear them over the electronic sounds. The sound improved marginally as the show progressed, and I also noticed a significant improvement when I moved from the balcony to the main floor, suggesting the acoustics of the hall played a part in the mixing issues as well.
Towards the end of the set, halfway through one of Caravan Palace’s first big hits “Brotherswing” (from their debut self-titled album), the sound completely cut out and they had to stop the song. Maintaining complete composure, Colotis explained that they had had some bus trouble earlier in the day and arrived late to the venue, missing their soundcheck, which explained all of the mixing issues. I do not envy the engineer who had to mix their complicated sound on the fly. Happily, the sound was restored and the band restarted the song. The mix sounded much better to me after that and there were no more technical issues.
“You have been the best audience. Keep being happy. The world needs peace and love. Just dance!” Colotis told the crowd before the last song.
After the song, she said “merci beaucoup,” before exiting the stage with the rest of the band. It seemed like the end of the show, but as the crowd chanted “One more song!” a pre-recorded track began to play with a male voice saying “Oh no, we’re not done yet…” The band re-emerged and launched into “Comics” from <l°_°l>. In fact, the “one more song” chant earned the crowd at least three more songs.
After the last of these, the band took a big bow to ceaseless cheers and applause from the crowd, but the show was not quite over yet.
“We try to spread love through our music,” Colotis began before explaining that the band had seen a posting on social media from a couple who met at one of their Chicago shows three years ago. They invited the couple up on stage and sure enough, the man got down on one knee and proposed! Not to be outdone, his partner responded by pulling out a ring of their own and joining him on one knee! The audience unsurprisingly went crazy at the engagement. What a way to end the show!
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