Daft Punk is now wrapping up their wildly popular Alive 2007 tour, praised by many critics as the best show of the year. Riding on the wave of its success, they have released a live album of the Paris show - their first in the City of Light for a decade.
Packaged with the album is a 55-page booklet of photos from the tour, as well as an enhanced CD with the encore track as well as the "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" video.
The album is reminiscent of the Coachella 2006 performance, given to a similarly enthusiastic crowd. Traditionally, Daft Punk introduces its concerts with the five famous notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Though they followed this tradition during their Alive 2007 tour, it didn't make it onto the album. Perhaps they thought it would be too reminiscent of the opening of their Coachella album. However, it would have been a fun Easter egg for those fans who would recognize it in the first place.
When Daft Punk puts on a show, they pull out all the stops. Opening for Daft Punk is nearly impossible (as was proved this year). Their stage setup consists of a giant pyramid, inside of which perch the two DJs, fully bedecked in their robot suits. And, of course, everything is covered in full-color LEDs.
The listener, of course, can only look at the photo book and be jealous. However, the photos help give a sense of context to the show's living energy - not that the music doesn't do a wonderful job on its own.
Daft Punk remixed, rewrote, resampled and mashed together songs both new and old to create a 70-minute orgy of electronica and bass.
It is difficult to pick out favorites from the album, as each "song" blends nicely into the next, and often there is no way to really mark out where one song stops and another begins. The opener, mixing "Robot Rock" and "Oh Yeah," begins with a clever synthesized Human vs. Robot "battle" between the DJs.
Another crowd favorite was the unprintable changes to "Technologic," which substituted many of the words for a much more colorful one.
Every track, however, is a worthy mix of Daft Punk's previous work. Those who say Daft Punk is getting tired need to hear this album.
