Family of God. See the audience? Neither could they. They love to rock. They love to rock. They love to rock. R-O-C-K: let's rock. According to a little-known Dutch law, a Beanie Baby must be present on-stage at all times during live performances.

I had never seen Arling and Cameron, the Netherlands' premier purveyors of kitschtronica, in a live setting before -- they generally tour as DJs. Accordingly, a "full band" performance by A&C struck me as something well worth seeing, though I wasn't exactly sure what a full band would entail. Strings and a horn section, perhaps? A brace of keyboards? It remained to be seen.

First, however, it was time for the opening act, Sugar Free Records' Family of God, to be thrown to the wolves. Although actually, "thrown to the wolves" is inaccurate. It's more like "ignored by the wolves despite rubbing raw meat all over themselves".

Though the club's doors had been open for ninety minutes, Family of God eventually found themselves on stage in front of an audience of ten or twenty people. And I use the term "in front of" loosely -- indifferent clusters of audience members were clustered around tables and the main bar, but nobody was standing in front of the stage. Nobody, that is, except for one of the guys from Family of God, who finally clambered onstage three songs into the set.

Family of God were actually quite good, in a throbbing, post-new-wave "mystic disco" sort of way, mixing keyboards, live drums, various string instruments and numerous keyboard effects into a miasma of pulsating energy. To their credit, they didn't indulge in any of the bratty behaviour typical of artists who find themselves playing to an unfairly small audience, and by the end of their set they'd engaged the interest of a few listeners. Perhaps audiences have gone back to the tiresome practice of showing up late to miss the opening band. Perhaps music fans are now so compartmentalized that Arling and Cameron fans hate the likes of Family of God -- Richard Cameron himself admitted to finding them "gloomy". Maybe Family of God would've met a warmer reception opening for Primal Scream. As it was, they deserved better.

Between sets, the room filled up quite a bit. Though still empty by weekend standards, the Dutchmen would have an eager and attentive audience.

Arling and Cameron's full band turned out to be two additional musicians: a guitarist and a guy who handled keyboards, wind instruments and other electronic twiddling. Gerry Arling, looking as always like a longer-haired Drew Carey, played a mean electric bass, proving himself to be skilled outside the studio, while Richard Cameron acted as MC and coordinated the video portion of the show. Arling and Cameron appeared onstage in matching white polo shirts and trousers, white sweaters around their necks, looking as if they'd been dragged away from the cricket pitch or tennis court minutes before the show.

Onstage video seems to have become par for the course with most electronic shows, but Arling and Cameron definitely went the extra mile with their screened accompaniment (supposedly assembled by Cameron during his recent honeymoon). Closely synched to the music, with portions of the lyrics popping up on-screen as they came up in the songs, the combination of film/video, animation and computer graphics definitely enhanced the show. In a few cases, there was even scripted interaction between Cameron and the video elements, which impressed the audience.

Beginning the set with a stripped-down, drum-and-bassed up take on "We Love To Rock", Arling and Cameron proceeded to blast through a selection of favorites from All-In and Music for Imaginary Films, including the former's "Speeding Down the Highway" and "We Love Dancing", and the latter's "W-E-E-K-E-N-D" and "Spacebeach" (complete with video of Jodie Foster from the "space beach" sequence in Contact). The feverish, madly dancing audience ate it up. New songs also made an appearance. One well received song, "Can You Pah-Pah?", included a predictably large number of "pah-pahs" in its lyrics, while another tune served as an "introduction" to A&C. This song, the name of which I failed to catch, was rap a la Arling and Cameron; slow-paced and accompanied by the video antics of an animated bear named Musti, it boasted a rather unfortunate (in America, anyway) chorus: "Two fruits from the musical tree / We are A & C."

Despite the "full" band, portions of the music were pre-recorded. Most artists choose not to acknowledge this when playing live, but Cameron embraced it, referring to vocalists and guest musicians as "joining us via tape" (and on occasion, "joining us live via the internet", which many members of the audience clearly took seriously).

As the show ended, Arling and Cameron appeared on-screen in Red Square, waving goodbye and walking off into the sunset. Somehow, they managed to return for an encore, dishing out another song and then leading the audience in a bizarre rendition of the chorus -- just the chorus -- of "Blowin' in the Wind". I won't pretend I've ever seen an encore like it. Always friendly and accessible, Gerry and Richard hung around to chat with audience members for some time after the show.

While not always as visually interesting as larger-scale shows by more conventional performers, Arling and Cameron's performance succeeded on the strength of their overwhelming desire to entertain. They seemed to be having as much fun -- if not more -- than the audience, and that sort of mood is always infectious. If you get a chance to catch them live, don't miss it. They're sure to lift your spirits.