Alive 1997

This live album, recorded in Birmingham in 1997 is what Daft Punk reckon to be one of their best live performance to date, spinning us back in time to the early days following the 1996 album Homework and the genesis of the Gallic Godzilla of innovative house-disco-funk that is currently mincing and mutating, marauding and Moroder-ing all over the modern dance scene.

After the instantly gripping count-in of ‘WDPK (Part I)’, the robotic chunks of guitar funk pulsing through their hypnotic first big hit ‘Da Funk’ (a song always destined to be played in a near-infinite loop) groove along for nearly twenty minutes without ever approaching dullness. The atmospheric cheers of the audience add to the ambience, like an organic version of the snippets of crowd noises that graced the duo’s debut album.

One is reminded that at this stage, Daft Punk were more concerned with dynamic beats than the discofied synth filtered croonings we know and love today, but the occasional live vocal murmurs, that seem to crop up incidentally rather than act as standard solid hooks, have a familiar quotient of cheesy charm.

It’s an enervated and euphoric album of hard house highs, breathtakingly broken at times by tracks like the hiccuping staccato of the acidic ‘Rollin’ & Scratchin’ and bass-heavy blocks of ‘WDPK (Part II).’ As they build towards the finale with the dizzying beats of ‘Alive’, you can almost see the playful strobe lights as they dance over the frenzied crowd. Magnifique!