BY ROXANA HADADI

How many times can one schtick succeed? If you're Chromeo, the answer is once - and that's about it.

Don't get us wrong - guitarist/vocalist Dave 1 (or David Macklovitch) and keyboardist/synthesizer extraordinaire/talk-boxer P Thugg (Patrick Gemayel)'s electroclash-funk-rock-Vocoder-autotone-thing is kitschy in the best of ways. And we understand that when you're a duo with only two albums (2004's She's in Control and 2007's Fancy Footwork), it's hard to jazz up a setlist.

But for those who have seen the two before, their performance at the 9:30 Club on Oct. 4 was just a carbon copy of previous shows (namely, their Dance Tent set at Baltimore's Virgin Festival in August; see BLURT's review here: www.blurt-online.com/concert_reviews/view/48/); though there were some slight differences, mostly everything - from Dave 1's stage banter to P Thugg's choice of Journey covers - was exactly the same. And for repeat viewers, that's not a good thing.

After an hour-long opening set from DJ Treasure Fingers (whose remix of Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" caused the dry-humping crowd to strongly resemble that one awkward scene from  The Matrix Reloaded ), Chromeo took the stage a little before 10:30 p.m., 15 minutes later than expected, although the mixed crowd of 13- and 14-year-olds (seriously, they were discussing homecoming dresses) and cougars (the pair of women pressed against the crowd barrier had just been talking about their adolescent kids) couldn't be bothered. They gasped, they screamed, they shook - it was like something straight out of a Beatles B-reel - all while chanting "Yo-e-oh, Chromeo."

And with that, the exact same setlist from Baltimore's Virgin Festival reared its ugly head. First came "Outta Sight" from  Fancy Footwork , then "Me & My Man" from  She's in Control  and crowd-pleaser "Tenderoni," which Dave 1 prefaced with, "In Canada, we don't have ‘honey' or ‘sweetie' ... we say, ‘tenderoni' (a direct quote from the set at Virgin Festival, by the way)" and which elicited a near riot in the audience. Though the crowd calmed down for "I Am Somebody," a track Chromeo produced with DJ Mehdi, they fired up again for "Needy Girl," as Dave 1 pranced around the stage to screaming girls on each side.

With that, the concert began exhibiting all the telltale signs of a band's first big show: Tons of free swag was thrown into the audience (as P Thugg took it upon himself to throw no less than 10 drumsticks and his own shirt into the crowd), mics kept malfunctioning (most obviously during "Opening Up") and a few smarter-than-the-average-fans found ways to sneak past the barrier and numerous 9:30 Club guards and climb up on stage (to exhibit some very awkward white-boy dancing).

And all of those signs continued through the rest of the band's set - during hits "You're So Gangsta" and "Fancy Footwork" - and the trio of encores (which proved to be the one drastic difference setting this show apart from the set at Virgin Festival). First came the rock encore, during which Dave 1 and P Thugg sipped Heineken, delivered a rousing rendition of "Momma's Boy" and launched into a trio of covers, "Don't Stop Believing" and "Anyway You Want It" by Journey and "Your Love" by The Outfield, and after that came the "slow jam version" of the night, as Dave 1 called it, which included "100%" (and a proclamation of "I don't see anything wrong with a little bump and grind").

But just as the audience thought it was over, Chromeo unexpectedly returned to the stage for "Woman Friend" from She's in Control. Before starting the song and driving the crowd into a final frenzy, Dave 1 announced to the audience that the duo would start working on their next album after this last concert - and hopefully they'll start working on a new setlist and stage banter, too.

Oh, and about the "6" rating above: technically, that's for fans who've seen the band before. For first-timers, though, it was probably a "9"...

[Photo Credit: Dove Shore]