Last night was the Seattle debut of Toronoto electro punk duo Crystal Castles, and I was totally stoked. I wrote about the band here at the beginning of the year, incorrectly predicting that they’d probably break up before they ever toured out to Seattle. Their originals and remixes are favorites of mine both at home and in the club—”Love & Caring” is an amazing single, and their remix of the Little Ones’ “Lovers Who Uncover” is gold. I’m glad they made it to Seattle, but I’m still not sure how I feel about their show.

The band was rounded out by a live drummer last night, which was a definite plus, although the pre-programmed beats occasionally drowned out all but the hi-hats. Producer/instrumentalist Ethan Fawn spent the show hunched over a Casio and a Microkorg, pumping out the band’s signature NES-core bleeps. The biggest surprise was perhaps lead singer Alice Glass. Reports from the band’s early shows painted her as introverted and immobile as Fawn, but she was a teenage riot on stage, bounding around, towering on top of the drums, falling into the crowd, playing with the incessant strobe lights*, screaming and wailing. It was kind of like the Dalmatians, if everyone in the Dalmatians had stayed goth after high school, or like Atari Teenage Riot trying to do pop songs, or the Presets with Faruza Balk for a singer. In other words, it was awesome.

But I can’t believe they didn’t play “Love & Caring.” That song is the motherfucking jam! “Crimewave” was the set’s highlight, transformed from head-nodding electro-lite pop to pogoing anthem live on the Showbox’s sound system. They also played “Alice Practice” and an instrumental version of their remix of Klaxons’ “Atalantis to Interzone” over which Glass improvised vocals. During two different songs Alice shouted some of the set’s only inteligible vocals, the livejournal-ready double-negative koan, “How does it feel when you don’t feel nothing?” This, along with the band’s early track “xxzxczx me”(they didn’t play it live)—about an “AIDS robot”—makes me wonder if the band doesn’t have a little room for improvement in the lyrical department.

The consensus in my part of the crowd seemed to be that it was a fine debut from the band, but that the show would’ve been a lot more fun in a basement or at Club Pop. But when is that not true?

I’ve seen Metric before, and they’re great, but I’ve been feeling sick, so I left after the band played only two so-so opening songs. I’m sure things picked up, and that they were great as usual, but I couldn’t, ahem, live it out.

*I have epilepsy now.