As slow ’80s tracks trickled through the speakers, the audience trickled into place, suspending us into a nostalgic calm (before the storm). Before a single note was played, an epilepsy warning flashed across the screen—an early hint that this show would be as much about the eyes as the ears.
Justice appeared on the stage after a brief blackout, a moment in which everyone clapped and welcomed them to what would be the temple for the night. By the second song of their set, the entire venue was on its feet. Not because the seats were hard or cold, but in a full-body surrender to the music and spectacle that lay before and around us. People danced, gasped, pointed, and stared in disbelief as a tornado of lights, smog, and reflections transformed the stage into a living, breathing chapel of sound. It felt less like a concert and more like a mystic immersive experience, that at times overwhelmed the senses, complete with pulsing strobes, delicate visuals in the monitors, bright heavenly beams, and the duo’s iconic cruciform brand anchoring it all.
At the heart of this holy, controlled chaos stood Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé, facing one another mid-stage, surrounded by a semicircle of analogue and digital gear like high priests at a temple altar. There was no banter, no distractions, no dancing—just music as gospel, intense focus as prayer, and visuals as divine accompaniment.
The way the lights responded to every beat wasn’t just timing or a pre-programmed show. To my immense surprise, it was performance art by Justice’s longtime collaborator and lighting designer, Vincent “Lewis” Lerisson, who once again worked his magic by actively “playing” the rig live, triggering ramps, flashes, and pulleys in perfect synchrony. I was sitting just behind his rig and was astonished to find that there was a third person to this “duo”—a modern (and benevolent) Wizard of Oz sitting behind a small curtain right next to the stage. What emerged through the combination of the music and the lights/media was a production that felt both massive and intimate, mechanical and spiritual.
And while the setlist spanned their full discography, from the grinding aggression of “Waters of Nazareth” to the disco-glazed euphoria of “D.A.N.C.E.” and “Safe and Sound,” it was the way these songs were presented that elevated the experience. Layers of fog created, at times, invisible curtains and, at other times, purposeful projection screens that were pierced by thousands of lights. The stage edges doubled as mirrors, warping the performers’ silhouettes into surreal prisms and mazes. Overhead trusses pulled and bent the lighting structure into new forms for each track, making us take part in a real-time sculpture that took (slightly different) shape each night of the tour.
One thing that has been in the back of my mind since I first heard them more than 17 years ago was the way in which the duo has always flirted with religious symbolism—specifically Christian ones: the †, the biblical track titles (“Genesis,” “Canon,” “Stress”), and the austereness of their album covers. I used to think it was a derision at best, but after this show I now believe it’s all intentional, in the best sense of the word.
Their live show feels like an experiment in spirituality. In that two-hour stretch, the room transformed into a kind of sanctuary. No need for instruction. No prayers spoken aloud. Just bodies moving in rhythm, eyes transfixed on the pulpit of LEDs, sound, screens, and smoke. The mundane world outside disappeared. I think that they are trying to focus on the overlap in the huge Venn diagram between religion and music—something akin to a mystic experience but simplified to act as a huge collective unwinding of what separates us, what stresses us, and what worries us from tomorrow.
When the encore hit—a run through “Phantom (Reprise),” “Civilization,” and “Helix,” the pillars of light surged one last time, the mirrored illusions deepened, and every head turned toward the radiant, pulsing centre of the stage. Justice created a shared experience that was intense, immersive, impossible to look away from, and at brief times sensorially overwhelming.
If music is a form of worship, then Justice are priests, and on this night, they ministered to all of us.
Review – Ricardo D Flores
Photos – Simon Williams & Matt Wong
