Caribou debut thumping new live show at tiny London residency

North London venue The Waiting Room’s bread and butter is hosting noisy punk bands in its tiny basement, the low ceiling and sticky floor perfect to witness a new band at their most feral and exciting. This week though, it played host to the next iteration of one of dance music’s finest live shows.

Ahead of their world tour behind new album Honey (out October 4), beginning in the States in November before hitting the UK next year, Caribou rented out the room for four nights to host rehearsals for the new live show. Then, they decided it’d be better to have fans along.

Those lucky enough to attend the shows – which began on Sunday (September 8) and conclude on Wednesday (11) – by winning a free lottery were treated to a live show with a new lick of paint, a smattering of dub-influenced new material, and a newfound muscle.

Dan Snaith and his band bring the electronic and the acoustic together majestically in their live show, with Brad Weber’s crashing live drums and Snaith’s synthetic punch overlapping constantly. At the second Waiting Room show on Monday night, material from Honey took Caribou in a more anthemic and dance-led direction.

Hits from the back catalogue ­– ‘Can’t Do Without You’, ‘Odessa’, ‘Never Come Back’ – sounded as towering as ever, especially in a room at least 10 times too small for them, and the light show was also by far the best The Waiting Room will ever see. But it was the forward-facing elements of the show that proved the most exciting.

This preview showed the Caribou live show moving forwards by expertly splitting the difference between a DJ set (which Snaith masters under his Daphni moniker) and a dance band playing a live set. Songs were performed in four or five song chunks and mixed together masterfully. Half way through the ecstatic new single ‘Broke My Heart’, the band dropped in a portion of its lauded remix from Champion, while the resurgent track ‘Hackney Parrot’, a 2013 UK rave classic from Tessela (now one half of Overmono), was also dropped in to whoops of approval.

The tour heads to London’s Roundhouse for three sold-out nights in February as part of a wider tour, and this preview pointed to a more eclectic, ravier and totally limitless future for the Caribou live experience.

Caribou played:

‘Volume’
‘Climbing’
‘Bowls’
‘Odessa’
‘Ravi’
‘Come Find Me’
‘Only You’
‘Sun’
‘Never Come Back’
‘Over Now’
‘Dear Life’
‘Broke My Heart’
‘Honey’
‘Got to Change’
‘Can’t Do Without You’