3OH!3 threw a house party in the Egyptian Room at the Old National Centre in Indianapolis Monday night. Although the room wasn’t packed, the several hundred who were there did their best to bring the house down as they jumped and sang all through the band’s hour-plus set.
Sean Foreman and Nat Motte – the duo who are 3OH!3 – have said more than once that they want their music and their performances to be fun more than anything else. With lyrics about parties, drinking, rebellion, and sex, it’s probably not necessary to actually make that statement. Regardless, the audience did have fun, mirroring the group’s tremendous energy, shaking the floor under their feet as they bounced to the hip-hop mixes.
On tour to promote their new album, Streets of Gold, 3OH!3 borrowed heavily from that disc for their performance. Opening with “Beaumount,” then sliding right into “I can do anything,” they got the crowd ready for many of their new singles.
Highlights of the set included “Touchin on my,” “I know how to say,” and “My first kiss,” the single that features Ke$ha on the disc. Before they performed “House party,” Nat told the crowd he’d been to a house party in Indy – Bridgewater, to be specific – one night after watching the Indy 500. The crowd loved the anecdote, jumping even more through that song, screaming the lyrics back to the band.
The duo wound up their first set with the title track from the new CD and walked off the stage still singing “Streets of gold.” Returning to the stage for their encore, they played “Love 2012,” a song they had played live only once before – Sunday night in Kentucky. With a slower groove, the song didn’t generate as much energy as earlier performances, although the crowd did seem to enjoy it.
What the audience loved, though, were a couple spoofs the band played next – one of them set to the score for Jurassic Park. As mentioned earlier, 3OH!3 is all about the fun and provided a lot of it, including performances at the end of the show of two fan favorites, “Double vision” and the single that really launched the group, “Don’t trust me.”
After telling everyone to “Shush girl, shut your lips, do the Helen Keller, and talk with your hips,” Nat and Sean jumped off the stage and walked through the crowd as they headed backstage, getting up close and personal with some of their fans.
Although the fun ended when 3OH!3 left the stage, it didn’t start with them. Three opening acts took the stage before the headliners, including Neon Hitch, Down with Webster, and Hellogoodbye. Down with Webster, a Canadian hip-hop group impressed the crowd and channeled their inner Eminem with “Whoa is Me,” while Hellogoodbye broke out the ukulele and sent happy vibes into the crowd.
