It was rather bloody windy out. The smokers were all huddled in the Smokers’ Cage just outside the venue when we arrived. My girlfriend was worried that we’d turned up a little late. “Bands show up on time where I come from!” she said. I’ve never known bands to start playing on time, but there it is. The support band, Maps, started out, and they were pretty good. It took people ages to make their way to the front. What is that about gigs, sometimes? There must have been a ten metre gap between the stage and the first row of people in the audience. What the fuck? Are you people too cool to stand close to the music or what? Well what a bunch of losers. Me and my girlfriend got the best spot in the house to take lots of cool snaps.

Purple. Moody. Nice.

Maps were really rocking, but it was obvously M83 that people were dying to see. And when they came on, sure enough the audience hipsterishly edged their way forwards to get a better view. After an atmospheric, synthesised intro to suitably set the mood to LED-lights-at-night, they came crashing down on us with Graveyard Girl, and boy did this song fly.

They had some pretty cool light effects.

Most of the songs they played were from their last couple of albums, with the exception of Sitting, which was given a suitably thumping rendition. I’m guessing this is to cash in on the eighties sound they had on those albums which is so in vogue right now. They played Teen Angst and Don’t Save Us from the Flames to thunderous applause. It didn’t take long for everyone to start dancing.

Sometimes the light effects were pretty powahful.

It turned out that we didn’t have the best spot to stand. From our vantage point. Anthony Gonzalez was hiding behind a Macbook composed entirely of LED lights for most of the gig.

Stop hiding, you bastard!

We were impressed with the quality of Morgan Kibby’s vocal skills. She sounded better here than on the albums, we thought. Perhaps it was the mixing. The drummer was kept behind a cage all night long to avoid drowning out the sound of the other instruments. Not that there was much chance of that happening, though. Anthony Gonzalez’s guitar was set at about four billion decibels.

She doesn't afraid of anything.

Kim & Jessie, Skin of the Night, We Own the Sky and You, Appearing all made an appearance, much to everybody’s delight. We were standing next to a boring lady who didn’t much like dancing, but never mind. Maybe she had a bad leg, the miserable cow. I did finally manage to get a good picture of Gonzalez in the end, though.

Just enough light. Marv.

The encore was a souped-up version of Couleurs, which nobody really wanted to end, and thankfully it went on for ages. I was a bit miffed that they didn’t play any new songs, but I can let that slide as it was a pretty damn fine gig all the same. I hope they get round to releasing a new album soon, the lazy sods.

Very cool stuff.