I figure I had better type this all out before I forget it.
Anyways, the Hartnoll Brothers made their way to Toronto,
Ontario, Canada to play a rave called EROS, on Saturday, November 19.
The rave was held in Toronto's Cinescape, which is a large
warehouse/soundset complex for making movies. The rave occupied two
equally sized rooms of larger than average warehouse size.
The first thing I should probably describe should be their stage
set-up. The stage was about five feet off the ground and it was
quite large. Above and behind the stage were 4 large (approximately 15
feet diameter) TV screens. Screens 1 and 3 showed the "true" picture
while screens 2 and 4 were flips of 1 and 3 along the vertical axis.
They had really interesting visuals consisting of old movies, fractals,
computer graphics and other kinds of things. The stage itself had eight
intellibeams, (very modern, bright and fast) as well as four strobes.
The brothers equipment was located dead center with about five
synthesizers and various other machines. Phil's region faced the
audience while Paul's stuff looked stage left.
They finally took the stage at 2a.m. Approximately 1600 people
packed into the one warehouse to see them. They were both wearing on
their heads double sets of flashlights to help them see. If you have
TEEX2, the picture of Paul in techno babes shows you exactly what I
mean. These were actually one of the most interesting lighting effects
of the entire show, as neither brother stopped bobbing his head around
for the entire show. (You try shaking your head for an hour and forty
minutes, if this doesn't sound impressive.)
Finally, onto the music. They let the show start with the usual
bass thrum and let that build for about two minutes. Then they moved
into their first song, the first track from Snivilisations. (Can't
remember it's title, I'm on campus right now and the CD is at home.) It
was well done, but it was rather a slow start to the show although a fair
amount of people were dancing (including me). My memory gets a little
fuzzy here but I think they followed it with the second track from
Snivilisations. After
that came a slow, bass heavy version of Lush 3-2. It wasn't very danceable
but it was interesting to hear. After that came from track #7 from
Snivilisations, (Argh! I wish I had my CD with me!) It was quite well
done and at this point most of the dancefloor was really starting to
move.
From this point on, things only got more amazing. They finally
played a fast song. It turned out to be Impact. Imagine the first 7 or
8 minutes of Impact (The earth is burning). Now imagine this first part,
plus the 6 and a half minutes of burning acid from the second half
of Impact USA. The crowd was dancing up a storm. This was followed by
the track that follows Impact on Orbital2. At rave volume this track was
an incredible explosion of noise and the crowd was going bonkers. The
next was the didgeridoo track from Orbital2. And yes, the crowd
continued it's dancing frenzy. Next came Are We Here?, the full 16
minute version, and still the crowd continued its pace. At this point,
some people started leaving the floor (too tired I guess), which meant I
could start actually
moving my arms to dance. Are We Here? was followed by Halcyon. It was
quite a grooving version of this track. After it had (apparently) ended
some sick house track that I can't remember the name of came on and the
audience actually started laughing but continued dancing anyways. The
big surprise came when this terrible track was *seamlessly* fused back
into the midsection of Halcyon. The crowd loved it. After that they
ended with Belfast. I always find Belfast a little slow, but this was a
good thing as my legs were getting pretty burned out by this point. The
audience then gave Orbital a fairly decent 2 minute applause, after which
they returned to the stage for an eight minute encore with a slightly
sped up version of Chime.
It was the best way I could think of to ever spend an hour and
forty minutes.
BTW, I was also able to interview Paul Hartnoll earlier in the
day. It was a half hour chat, and I haven't even listened to it since
the interview occurred. If there is significant interest in the text of
this interview, please e-mail privately to let me know and I will post it
to the list. If there is sufficient interest in this I will do my best
to post it before Christmas, although I make no promises since Christmas
exams, are only 2 weeks away, and I have to start studying.
Also, us idm'ers will now have to start looking at *shudder*
Madonna's future EP's. Orbital have been contracted to do a mix for one
of the singles to her latest album. No idea what track it will be.
Phil