While perhaps a majority of Brisbane's cool kids were Tivoli-bound on Saturday night for electro hipsters du jour Rufus, a modest but dedicated crowd headed down South Pine Road to Eatons Hill Hotel for synth-pop veterans Cut Copy.
The venue's Grand Ballroom was host to what could have easily been mistaken for a pumping, if relatively early-finishing, outer-'burbs house party. Support Touch Sensitive (aka Michael Di Francesco of Van She fame) added live basslines to smooth programmed grooves and Nile Delta warmed up the still slightly dotted crowd further with his dancefloor wizardry.
But the punters had very much converged on the floor by the time Cut Copy energetically took to the stage accompanied by rapturous hollering. Years of constant touring clearly hadn't dampened the band's enthusiasm as they belted out commanding opener ‘We Are Explorers’ from their latest album, last year's ‘Free Your Mind’. While I was hoping for a bit more ‘Bright Like Neon Love’-era madness, such as ‘Going Nowhere’, they did deliver with ‘Saturdays’ and a handful of hits from ‘In Ghost Colours’ and their late-noughties festival zenith, such as ‘Hearts On Fire’ and ‘So Haunted’.
No freshmen to the live-show game, the band turned it on visually. ‘Let Me Show You Love’, a lush, hypnotic standout from ‘Free Your Mind’, was aptly accompanied by a massive, projected black-and-white spinning trance wheel. So mind-bendingly enthralled were we all by the track-graphic combo, the band could've easily commanded us to perform all manner of occult-esque shenanigans and we'd have lemming-ly gone along with it. 
They also still appear to have an absolute ball at every gig, with guitarist Tim Hoey frequently leaping up on Mitchell Scott’s drumkit and frontman Dan Whitford regularly interacting with and fist-pumping along with the excited revellers.
Mainstay hit ‘Lights & Music’ closed out the set proper, but after much screaming and gnashing of teeth the lads returned for a one-track encore with third album ‘Zonoscope’s anthemic ‘Need You Now’.
It was a bit of a hike but the affable party vibe was worth it and proved Cut Copy are still a force.
