Even though Crystal Castles played some gigs and big festivals in 2009, seeing them perform in Europe is still a rare opportunity. With a new album about to be released and some songs already leaked, the Berlin gig was not to be missed. So Ritter Butzke was packed with people eager to see the Canadian duo and fortunately not even Eyjafjallajökull could stop Ethan Kath and Alice Glass from doing their thing. In their case, doing their thing means kicking some major ass. Starting the set of the night with “Baptism” made sure that the crowd was getting what it had been waiting for from second 1 of the concert. Within moments after Kath had touched his instruments and Glass had picked up the mic for the first time, the concert turned into a sticky mess of noise, smoke and lights and bouncing, screaming, shoving and sweating bodies. It seemed like Crystal Castles would only play their slower songs to make sure that the audience could take a breather and would not pass out from dehydration or exhaustion. Controlling the whole scenery with indisputable authority was Alice Glass in her usual eerie stage attire. An angelical zombie junkie straight from the center of your wet dreams, poking its head out between clouds of smoke and flashing lights, shouting and twitching, appearing almost translucent and weightless. Especially when she was crowd surfing, it seemed more like she was hovering above people’s heads, not really touching anybody’s hands. The only person who didn’t seem like he was enjoying these moments was a pitiable guy on stage who had to make sure that the cable of the mic was going wherever Glass was going. And she was going places. The band, with support from fantastic live drummer Christopher Robin, went on to play most of the tunes from their first album and also some new material like “Doe Deer” “Intimate” “Empathy” and “Celestica”and left the audience totally exhausted but also totally happy. After an hour of show one could ask oneself if it was actually possible to further improve a Crystal Castles gig. It seemed like the only possibility to do so would be to cut out some more of the rave and pop elements, since the vibe was always best, whenever the songs got noisier and more chopped up. Or simply play until everybody collapses.

Other than that its safe to say: The fate of the world is safe in Crystal Castles.

See the video after the jump.