To get a feel for Clean Bandit's appearance at the Majestic last Saturday, you don't need to look much further than State Street after the Badger victory the same night. The U.K. based classical music meets pop-house group came on to a Madison crowd sweaty and pulsing in anticipation. This was thanks in a part to Meg Mac, the Australian special guest, who stoked the audience with her powerful vocals prior to showtime. Perhaps to add to this, the crowd was left to churn for a while longer while a store worth of electronic instruments were set up.
Clean Bandit (plus traveling guest Elisabeth Troy) eventually took the stage to a crowd as electric as Elisabeth Troy and Grace Chatto's outfits. The two wore gossamer white capes and revealing jumpsuits (a combination that would surely leave Chatto's professors at her alma mater – the literal Jesus College shaking their heads). The costuming went so far as to have a special custom plastic-rimmed matching baseball cap set out for Troy to play with throughout the show. For its part the crowd was a medley of exuberant twenty somethings, many of who seemed to lack a sense of proprioception, with a sprinkling of high school (and younger?) fangirls accompanied by mom sporting the crisp white Clean Bandit t-shirt swag.
The music was exactly what the crowd came for and Clean Bandit happily supplied. Starting the set with their most popular song “Real Love.” The music was predictable, leaving the masses to throw themselves into dance (in some ways all too literally). The performance gave the feeling of something bigger than it's venue, each song ending with Troy and Chatto standing arms in the air ready to soak up the praise of the audience. However, it will be hard for Chatto, Troy and the rest of the Clean Bandit crew to top Saturday on the rest of their tour as a basketball frenzied Madison really laid out the love.
