With the crowd eager to spend their first night of Connect living it up in true ‘Boutique’ style, we figure there can be only one place for a sonic adventure, and that’s where Toronto-based brain-manglers Crystal Castles come in.

A near blacked-out tent becomes flooded to full capacity, and as the duo spark up their set, a wall of strobe-lighting erupts and Alice and Ethan soon set about alighting the musical rulebook. The duo whip up a ferocious assault of 8-bit bleeps and contorted punk squeals. Alice, holding centre stage chiefly by darting between speaker stands, skipping the stage and occasionally over the crowds heads, is as inward as a frontwoman prone to stagediving can be, hiding behind a sea of strobes that could shutdown the cranium of an elephant.

‘Alice Practice’ and ‘Untrust Us’ sound huge, like a Sega Master System being kicked down the stairs at Trash, although it does demonstrate the band’s live setting to be far more effective than their albums.

It’s a short set, designed to shock the senses and leave you feeling like a ‘Nam veteran by the end. ‘Scenester in-joke!’ you may squeal, but tonight there’s nothing left but grinning faces and the casualties of a few unknowing epileptics. Ace, in other words.