Justice live in London: the greatest show on tour right now
Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay’s ongoing tour behind last year’s ‘Hyperdrama’ album is a pulverising audio-visual spectacular that deserves to go down in history
Rarely does an act hit its undoubted peak more than 20 years into their career, let alone one fighting against a tide of a rapidly changing dance music landscape. After emerging from the heavy shadow of Daft Punk in the French house scene of the 2000s, Justice have – willingly or not – become the heirs apparent to this particular throne. It’s fitting that, after the robotic icons’ breakup in 2021, Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay have levelled up on their new live tour to become the must-see dance act on the planet.
Last year’s Hyperdrama album was a welcome return for the duo, seeing them collaborate heavily with Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker as well as Thundercat, Miguel and more. The album switches between heavy beats and funkier experiments, but Justice have always been best when they put the pedal to the metal, and the tour utilises this to the maximum effect.
Launching at Coachella 2024, Justice’s new live show is maximalist in every sense. A dazzling and world-class light show dances around the effortlessly cool pair – decked out in custom Celine gold jackets – as they serve up what is essentially a never-ending megamix. The pair know their best and biggest songs – the immortal ‘We Are Your Friends’, bloghouse anthem ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ and huge Tame Impala collab from Hyperdrama, ‘Neverender’ – and return to them throughout the set.
Though Augé and de Rosnay seem suitably nonplussed throughout the show, they are surely well aware of the pandemonium every second of the show whips up. Ahead of countless pulverising drops, a raft of lights descend from the ceiling to just above their heads, adding tension before the euphoric release.
In the last six months, the pair have played Victoria Park for All Points East and now Alexandra Palace, two venues often criticised for their thin sound. At both, Justice sound extraordinarily punchy, and it’s a show that demands to smack you around the face over and over.
Such is the scale and intensity of the light show, it’s almost not a surprise when something malfunctions towards the end of the claustrophobic, aptly-titled ‘Stress’, leading the pair to exit the stage for a few minutes. Far from stressed themselves, they return to the stage, de Rosnay giving the most nonchalant of shrugs to the crowd, before immediately plunging them back into the unbridled chaos of ‘Afterimage’. It shifts the BPM up more than a few notches as if to show how thoroughly unbothered they are about the little hiccup.
As the show careers towards its end, no less than four songs – ‘Phantom Pt. II’, ‘Heavy Metal’, ‘We Are Your Friends’ and ‘Neverender’ – are melted together for the show’s finale, as if daring themselves and the crowd to find new levels of euphoria.
In the nine months since launched at Coachella, Justice’s live show has been adapting and evolving constantly. As it nears its end, it’s become bigger, heavier and leaner – a world-conquering beast of a live show. It deserves to be immortalised on what would surely be one of the great modern live albums.