IDM Mailing Archive

What a disaster. Went out on Saturday night all hyped up and ready to groove to Autechre playing live. It would have only been my second time seeing them live. Last time being that excellent gig in the Funnel. Invisible armies came on and were o.k wasn't really all that impressed found then quite boring except for about 2 really nice tracks but then I was there for Autechre. About half way thru this I began to hear nasty rumours about Autechre not playing live because of some technical glitch. Began to worry. Invisible armies finished playing and the some guys came out and started clearing off the stage. No new equipment came on. I was pissed. I headed over to the sound engineer and asked if he knew what the story was. Turns out someone forgot a vital piece of Autechre's rig so they couldn't play live and were going to attempt a DJ set instead except they had no records. ARRGGH! They did play a DJ set and it was quite intresting because as far as I can tell they only had 2 records Anvil Vapre and Cichlisuite managed to do quite well. I really enjoyed it. It was definetly fun to see the rest of the crowd get their heads around it. All in all pretty disappointing. Won't stop me going to see them again hoping they'll make it up to the Irish IDM crowd by playing here again real soon Brendan

quoted 35 lines First up was invisible armies, I'd never checked these out before

> > First up was invisible armies, I'd never checked these out before > on record or live and had no idea Ireland was outputting talent > this good, well impressed. ( currently downloading an mp3 from > http://www.iol.ie/~murraycp/invisarm.html if you want to check them > out). A fine melting pot of hip hop, electro, breakbeats, obscure > samples and tech noise, two electric guitars onstage tweaked into > barely recognizable sounds from the rock twang we're used to and > three tech-bods doing the tweaking. > > The slam boys up next, Stuart Mcmillan continued the funky beats > with some fine electro from phreax and the like. Half an hour later he > was back to the usual 4/4 stomping, which I usually enjoy from him but > wasn't in the mood for tonight, the mood already being set with the funky > stuff. Kept with it after an hour of beats but I yearned for a string or > a smidgeon of soul, anything. Finally he let Mrs anna log creep atop > those bare beats which kept me on the floor. > > Autechre next, have to admit I've not heard a load of, only got > two records > but those fucked up, off kilter crunchy beats were exactly what I needed. > This IS dance music (even if some of the ken & Barbie fluffy bra brigade > did look around in dismay ). Neither playing live or really Dj'ing... > didn't play any records ... just plugged in a minidisc or something and > pressed play, didn't even know this until a friend told me later though. > Finished off with a mad fast semi drum & bass monster before Andy > Weatherall > got on. Back to the stompers, we left, I think I'm getting past my > sell-by-date. > > Seeyez, > John > > >

What a dissapointment. Skipping out on a party I had commited to weeks ago to go see Autechre play live in Dublin was a tough decision for me. Not tough to make, but tough to justify to my friends. Arriving in Dublin made me feel a whole lot better. I was going to see Autechre live, and nothing else mattered. We turned up at the redbox really early, queueing before the doors openened. We arrived in to one of the Slam DJs playing deep house grooves. I really enjoyed his set. He did some wonderful things with the mixer, coming really smoothly out of a house track into a really melodic drum and bass track which gained tempo and funk growing to a tremendous break which he smoothly fell back out of into a really funky house track. It really got the crowds attention. Next up was invisible armies. I really enjoyed listening to them. They performed well enough, though a little rough around the edges. It'll be interesting to see what they do and how they develop in the next year or so. The second slam DJ bored me to tears, but that's probably because by this stage we had heard that Autechre weren't going to play live. My heart nearly broke when I first heard it. We waited patiently for the roadies to start dismantling IAs gear, and it didn't happen. A friend approached a sound engineer to try to gleam the truth. Yes Autechre weren't playing live, a very important piece of equipment had dissapeared in transit or something. Shit. They're going to try to do a DJ set. Cool. But they don't have any records with them? Huh? When they did come on they played two tracks off of Anvil Vapre, and two tracks of Cichli Suite. Credit where credit is due, they did make the best of a bad situation. I did enjoy hearing Second Bad Vibel on such an awesome soundsystem. And the crowd seemed totally confused. I don't know why, it just seemed sort of funny. All these people off their heads, dancing and yelling to Autechre, sort of half expecting the distortion to build up or something. I won't even bother describing weatherhall. I didn't really care at that stage, my night had been ruined, by some accident that nobody is really responsible for. What really pissed me off, and the more I think of it the more irrate I get, is that the RedBox didn't let us know before hand. It was a non ticketed event, so all those who had turned up for Autechre could have decided not to waste their money. I missed Wu Tang Clan and a trick set by DJ Noise( 1996 DMC champion ). -- hjw