What began at a festival in the desert a little more than a year ago ended at a festival in the desert last weekend, as Daft Punk played its final North American show on the band’s Alive 2007 tour last Sunday at the Vegoose festival in Las Vegas.
The summer tour was an event, bringing dance music fans together in venues across the country to witness two Frenchmen in robot suits play their hits as only these dance geniuses could re-imagine them.
But for Daft Punk fans, and fans of dance music in general, who missed the band’s local show or who live too far away to make it, hope comes in the form of “Alive 2007” the album, due stateside Nov. 20.

The album, recorded in June at a concert in Paris, will comprise all the audio aspects of the live show, including the encore on a bonus disc for the deluxe edition. The bonus disc even includes a video clip from the show, which will give those not in attendance a taste of the visual spectacle Daft Punk has put on across the globe in the past two years.
It’s not a recording to miss. Daft Punk’s first live album, “Alive 1997,” came out after its last world tour, a full ten years ago, and it is impossible to predict when American fans will see the Parisian robot DJs in this neck of the woods again.
Daft Punk’s live show is remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is the music. Fans who have followed the filter house duo know what’s in store here: big, often blissfully repetitive sampled grooves, thick bass lines and more kick drum than your booty will know what to do with.
But the “Alive 2007” set is special. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo are DJs by trade, and shift effortlessly between songs with transitions and blends that seem like songs unto themselves.
Only rarely in the set does one song play alone, and at times the robots have loops from all three of their studio albums playing at once, giving listeners the impression that this is what their career was building toward all along. Even material from the duo’s most recent, least impressive studio album “Human After All,” takes on a new life in the set.
The bonus disc of the album is to contain the encore, the only point in the set where the DJs play non-Daft Punk material, dropping two songs from Bangalter’s side projects with DJ Falcon. It’s all guaranteed dancing music, and the perfect dessert for listeners who cannot stop at the end of the primary set.
The only problems with the recording are that it signifies the end of the tour for American audiences, and that the Alive 2007 tour experience cannot be fully realized in audio alone. One look at YouTube videos taken at tour stops this summer, or even a Google search for still images from the shows, should give a sense of just how overwhelmingly large and bright the stage set was. Something is lost without the visuals, without the bass being pumped out at a volume that jiggles your guts.
Still, this is a commercial recording of a live set that covers the entire span of Daft Punk’s career, and it fully deserves a shot at thumping through your stereo when it is released later this month.