Adelaide Festival was treated to an orchestral performance of the songs of Daft Punk in Alternative Symphony: Daft Punk in The Summerhouse at the weekend. With Daft Punk disbanded, this is truly the closest we are likely to get to seeing them in Adelaide.
This is not a typical tribute to Daft Punk, rather its known as an orchestral rendition of Daft Punk. There are no signature helmets here though, but a frequent reminder of them through video imagery synched to the songs. An 18 piece stand-up orchestra (not something you see every day!) provides the instrumental sounds of Daft Punk’s tunes. All dressed in black various performers came and went, and we did wonder at times whether the stage at the pop-up Adelaide Festival venue, The Summerhouse, would be able to fit them all!
Two other performers, Carl and Jasper, entertained the crowd in their sparkly vest and jacket respectively. Both sung and only Jasper danced but I feel like the singing should have been left to Carl who shone in that area and the dancing left to Jasper (Carl said at the beginning he wouldn’t be dancing saying that he’s “too old for that shit”). Unfortunately, in some instances Jasper’s singing was out of pitch and breathless and detracted from otherwise flawless performances. As a dancer though, Jasper shone with some well-delivered moonwalk moves.
We mentioned the video imagery before, it’s worth noting that Alternative Symphony: Daft Punk put on an impressive visual performance as well – with a large LED screen at the back of the stage showing a range of graphics throughout the performances. Colour-changing lighting darted around the stage and towards the audience.
While it’s true that a lot of Daft Punk songs are familiar, few would know that they recorded more than 90 from 1994 to 2021! Alternative Symphony: Daft Punk may have benefited from opening with one of the better-known tracks to get the crowd hyped from the beginning. Whenever the crowd knew a song, they’d get up and dance. They could have had the crowd dancing the whole time had they opened up with better-known tracks such as Around the World, Get Lucky, which were performed but much later in the show. Sometimes you forget that Daft Punk collaborated with a lot of artists including The Weekend (Starboy), Panda Bear (Doin’ it Right), Rising Dust Ft Asi Shiran (Sounds Of The Future (Daft Punk Mashup)), which featured in the Adelaide Festival show.
Alternative Symphony: Daft Punk performed 13 Daft Punk tracks plus the very fitting encore of “One More Time”. The 9pm performance was their second performance for the night having done a Dr. Dre songs show earlier in the evening. The musicians all looked to be enjoying brining Daft Punk’s songs to life through their instruments, but the drummer in particular seemed to have true rockstar attitude and be loving his performance.
The audience was up on their feet for at least the last 25 minutes of the show and craving more. Audiences truly seemed to be loving the music and the opportunity to lose themselves to dance after 2 years of not being allowed to.
You can read our interview with Alternative Symphony founder, Alex, here.
3.5 CROISSANTS
Matilda Marseillaise was a guest of Adelaide Festival.
Adelaide Festival has now concluded. To keep up to date on when and where Alternative Symphony: Daft Punk may be playing near you, follow them on Facebook
You can read our other Adelaide Festival reviews below
REVIEW: Juliet and Romeo at Adelaide Festival
REVIEW: The Rite of Spring and common ground[s] at Adelaide Festival
REVIEW: The Golden Cockerel at Adelaide Festival
For other events with French links happening around Australia, check out our What’s on in March
