By Jules Champion
Duckwrth at the Catalyst was a nonstop dance party.
The opening act, Elujay, coming off their recent album release ‘Circumvent’, set the tone. Sunglasses on, hot tea in hand, he walked on stage with one simple question “y’all ready to dance?” From then on the show was nothing but fun. While the Catalyst was surprisingly sparse for a huge artist like Duckwrth it just left more room to get down. Elujay played songs off their new album including ‘Pandemia’ and ‘Luvaroq’ and played their new single ‘Broke’. His set was relatively short but packed a lot into a small package. His beautiful vocals translated perfectly on stage as he switched between high energy funk to his more classic neo-soul style.
After a short break, Duckwrth came out in full force, speaking French and smoking in an all black suit. He played every song off of his new album ‘Chrome Bull’ with the help of Just Liv’s astounding vocals. Never in my life have I heard an audience cheer for that long when introducing a band. For a full 2-3 minutes the crowd cheered for Just Liv and Duckwrth’s other bandmates. The band responded with energy with choreographed dances to songs like ‘Super Saiyan’ and ‘Crush’, rap breaks, and all the hits off of Duckwrth’s biggest project, ‘Supergood’.
The entire show the audience was on the edge of a mosh with Duckwrth making repeated allusions to their punk origins. An encore delivered on his promise with a rendition of Green Day’s ‘Basket Case’ that had the whole audience jumping. My favorite moment of the entire show was moshing and suddenly turning around and seeing Duckwrth’s guitarist, Budda, in the mosh with his guitar still in hand, before he hopped back on stage for a guitar solo.
The Chrome Bull tour is going on now, jetting off to Europe and to cities like Dublin, Manchester, and Zürich