By Mike Rougeau

French musician M83, whose real name is Anthony Gonzalez, lulled audience members into a dream-like state of joy at his sold out show at the Middle East in Cambridge Tuesday. Gonzalez had a full band in tow to help him recreate the epic electro sounds of his most recent album, Saturdays = Youth, released in April.

M83 began performing shortly after opener School of Seven Bells left the stage, and as the room darkened, the crowd’s excitement peaked. Gonzalez opened the set with fan favorite “Run Into Flowers,” a synth and chanting-filled track from his 2004 album Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts.

The incredible volume of the initial crescendoing drum fill immediately took the crowd by storm. Intense changes in volume characterized the entire set, highlighting Gonzalez’s expert use of dynamics to dramatize his songs.

Overpowering, descending drum fills that sounded like they were pulled directly from a stadium-filling ’80s rock band’s vocabulary saturated the set, just as on M83’s albums. Although powerful at first, the fills seemed to lose their impact by the end of the performance, when audience members began to lose their ability to hear.

Synthesizers, keyboards and drums were given precedence over guitar, although several songs, including “A Guitar and a Heart,” featured prominent, squealing guitar riffs. Vocals, when present, took the form of either sampled spoken lines from M83’s studio recordings or the breathy, barely distinguishable mutterings and chants of the musicians onstage.

Gonzalez did a great job of accurately recreating his signature sound live, including both the ups and downs of his albums. Intense, drum-filled electro tunes and synthesizer-filled catchy pop songs like “Kim and Jessie” provided the best moments of the show, while the fuzzier, less focused tracks like “You, Appearing” tended to drag. On his albums, these tracks provide much-appreciated atmospheric and shoegazey intermissions between more interesting songs, but performed live, they simply lulled the crowd into an apathetic state.

Highlights included singles “Run Into Flowers,” “Don’t Save Us From The Flames,” “Kim and Jessie,” “A Guitar and a Heart” and the encore, “Couleurs.” “Couleurs,” in particular, came the closest to persuading even the most stolid audience members to let the music tell their bodies how to move.

Opener School of Seven Bells, consisting of former Secret Machines member Benjamin Curtis and former On!Air!Library! members Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, set the stage with their sprawling yet reserved electronic songs. Audience members seemed to enjoy the nearly 40-minute set, although most were simply waiting patiently for M83 to begin.

While School of Seven Bells performed admirably as openers, they too often sounded like a less engaging version of M83. Perhaps listeners more familiar with their songs would disagree, but those who had never heard them before were most likely unconvinced by their performance.

M83, on the other hand, was entirely entertaining, yet disappointing in his inability to translate the highs and lows of his albums into an engaging set. That being said, experiencing M83 live can only increase the fuzzy feeling spawned in the hearts of fans as they listen to Gonzalez’s equally warm, love-filled albums.