I Lost My Heart to Lo-Fi-Fnk

-But certainly not the opening act.

Let me tell you a story of how I woke up to Lo-Fi-Fnk before I get to their show Saturday night.
The Swish Blog posted a Who Made Who track way back when. There wasn't much on the web about the Gomma act at the time. I headed over to Beatstreet.ca to listen to some of their other tracks and ended up listening to the entire jukebox. At the end of it played the most amazing track ever-'If I Gave You a Party' by Sexual Harassment (a band name-checked in LCD's 'Losing My Edge'). I didn't know much about them so I went on a man-hunt for info and surprise surprise-there was less info about them than there was about Who Made Who.
Smashed Robot! came up on google and that's how I discovered the site that would change my electro life.
The track was apart of Smashed Robot!'s "Shit-Updated" post and the intro track of the Just the Claps mix was Lo-Fi-Fnk's 'Wake Up'.
They later were brought to my attention again when Abstract Boy did a post about seeing them live.
I clicked on the link for their myspace and that's when I made the connection to the Smashed Robot! mix.
So imagine my surprise when they end up playing Portland over Seattle! Bands always seem to pick Seattle over Portland. Of course I had to go.

The gig was at Towne Lounge, where I've never been before. Doors were at 9pm, show at 9:30. I got there at 9:40-big mistake. I was told then they wouldn't be on until 11 or 11:30 so I obviously had some time to kill. I thought about heading down to the Misshapes gig at Berbati's then and there, but decided to go to that after this gig.
I got back at 11 to suffer through an opener. I cannot begin to describe how disturbing they were-a singer and a DJ. The singer was balding, in a suit, and wore reading glasses. He sang over techno-y music begging whoever the song was about to take off their clothes. He then took off his-first his tie and then TOO much more. His under-shirt he didn't just remove-he ripped it off by the straps. And they would announce each song as their last, but they just went on and on and on.
Finally at midnight, the Swedish trio that is Lo-Fi-Fnk took the stage.

Even in the tiny room that is Towne Lounge, quite a dance party broke out. It was like being in Berlin again a little bit. Far too much fun losing your mind to the music and that's what everyone seemed to be doing. They didn't talk too much between songs other than to say that they wished the sound was better and the club was bigger.

The best songs were 'City', 'Wake Up', 'Change Channel' and 'System'. I cannot sing the praises of 'System' enough. It sounds great on their Moshi Moshi disc, but live-I would say it was the absolute highlight-the bass-lines were just awesome! I would pay full price to see them live if they only played one song and that song was 'System'.

The lead singer said they had one last track at the end of their set, but the other two walked off, so that was the end of it. Their tour manager DJ Never Forget got back to manning the night's soundtrack and the dancing continued on.
Yay to him playing a 'Hounds of Love' remix, a Fox N Wolf remix, and the new Justice-which reminds me of Daft Punk's 'Harder Faster...' just a tad. What is it with Ed Banger stuff? When I first heard SebastiAn's 'Ross Ross Ross' I thought it sounded like Daft Punk's 'Face to Face'. Must either be my mind wanting to make the connection or Busy P doing some masterminding.

'The End' Lo-Fi-Fnk MP3

*And for those of you not in the know, but would like to be-they pronounced their name on stage as "Lo-Fi-Funk."

Anyway, Tyler of Smashed Robot! and now Radio Zero has pics from their B.C. gig here:
http://www.halfalive.ca/photos/lofifnkcertifiedbananas/index.htm

The rest o' mine from PDX are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nilina/sets/72157594583757207/detail/

Comments

[Sam]

I was at the Vancouver set! They were amazing! They have so much life live. The mp3's I have just don't give them quite enough justice. They made a really seedy bar feel alright, if only for one night.

[brad]

i'm dying for the next two weeks to hurry by so i can see lff twice here in nyc

[Nilina]

Ahhh-don't make me jealous Brad! Twice! And with the Presets!