The pair behind Underworld has been making music since Ronald Reagan was president, or Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, and the band itself coalesced in those years. And yet, at Seattle’s Showbox Sodo on May 20th, the duo of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith blew the roof off with an unrelenting, two-part set that drove many in the crowd to euphoric abandon. This tour, “Open until Close,” supports their 2024 album, Strawberry Hotel, and the duo showed up in fine form, proving again why they’re truly one of the seminal electronic acts of the era. It’s been a long time since this reviewer left a club so soaked in sweat, so fulsomely exhilarated.
Their live show manages to be both incredibly compelling and yet understated from a production perspective. Lights flash and lasers project, and smoke machines smoke, and occasionally a screen behind the duo would flash images – sometimes of the performers or their silhouettes, of words – but otherwise the show is largely bereft of some of the more grand elements found in contemporary stage shows. Similarly, neither Hyde nor Smith speaks with any regularity. Instead, the duo moves from one pounding song to the next, Hyde gesticulating as he delivers his trademark, often hypnotically repetitive lyrics. In the case of your reviewer, the only possible way to engage with the music, with its pounding, somber yet ecstatic delivery, was to dance, grinning like a fool, pounding one’s fist in the air.
Indeed, if there was one complaint about the show, it was the lack of dancing among some audience members (which honestly seemed incomprehensible, as impossible as water not flowing downhill). For some, movement was imperative, as necessary as breathing, buoyed by the relentless bass and rhythmic lyrics, and the show offered an incredible opportunity to truly let loose and immerse in, to become, the music.
The new album very capably joins its siblings, with aggressive, dark-tinged bangers that feel both contemporary and yet very much of the same lineage. Indeed, songs like “Denver Luna,” “Techno Shinkansen,” and “The Colour Red” – all of which made appearances in the live set – feel fresh yet firmly grounded. The band proved they knew their audience, rolling through a set list that spanned their career, including not only the new tunes previously mentioned but also classics such as “Pearl’s Girl,” “Dark and Long,” “Cowgirl,” and “Juanita.”
And then, of course, there is the classic, the one everyone knows: the duo’s breakout hit, “Born Slippy Nuxx.” One cannot imagine Underworld playing a show without playing that song, with its immediately recognizable opening bars and seemingly stream-of-conscious lyrics, “drive boy dog boy dirty, numb angel boy…” This song was the final song of the show and needless to say, the moment it made its appearance, the crowd went nuts, with even the most staid yelling, pounding the air, and dancing. And with good reason: the band went for it, finishing decisively before sharing a hug and waving to the crowd, then leaving us in rhapsodic, awed puddles to find our way into the night.
