Full disclosure: I was a crappy Catholic school girl. I never adhered strictly enough to the dress code, I listened to Satanic music (Alice in Chains, holla!), randomly got into verbal spats with the devoted and faked it every time I prayed (that's right, I said it). These days I work at Wired, where my beliefs are accepted. I've embraced my inner Richard Dawkins and left questions of divinity to the philosophers. Then, last night, I found religion. It's called Justice. OK, that's overstating it a bit, but I have to say that during the French duo's set last night at San Francisco's Mezzanine I got sucked in to their religious iconography shtick. Taking the dais for their midnight mass (seriously, they went on at around 12 a.m. so "One Minute to Midnight" was a little late) Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé burned through a set that consisted almost entirely of their record †. Yes, that's "Cross" like the awesome giant illuminated rood they were playing behind and the makeshift glow stick things fans were hoisting in the air. Speaking of, if the crowd last night is any indication, Justice's adoption of all things Biblical might be bringing back one of the best fashion accessories of the last quarter century: gold cross earrings -- like those of the George Michaels and Madonnas of yesteryear. Fashionable rosaries are going to be so now so soon.
Normally it can be kind of annoying to go to a show and have the artist just drop their current record, not so for Justice. As they jumped from the gothic disco of "Genesis" to the organ grind of "Waters of Nazareth" my devotion, and that of those around me, only grew with each harder-hitting beat. "D.A.N.C.E."? Yes. And we did. By the time they topped their set with the song that made them European clubland gods -- their remix of Simian's "Never Be Alone" -- I was beginning to understand why people get sucked into cults. Augé and de Rosnay don't seem to really have any religious axe to grind, a la Marilyn Manson, but they do share his flare for the dramatic and if there was a Church of Justice there would be a willing congregation of the unwashed masses ready to join. Genuflect bitches!
More pictures and ephemera after the jump.
[Photos by Jon Snyder]
Justice North American Tour Dates:
10-11 Portland, OR - Holocene
10-12 Seattle, WA - Neumos
10-13 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom
10-16 Minneapolis, MN - Foundation Nightclub
10-17 Chicago, IL - Metro
10-18 Toronto, Ontario - Republik
10-19 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis
10-21 Philadelphia, PA - Starlight Ballroom
