Today was one of the most amazing days ever. This was without a doubt, the
best live performance that I have ever witnessed.
Picture this...Autechre is playing live at a college campus in New Jersey.
The floor is the lawn of a college fraternity house. The stage is at the
edge of the lawn with trees hanging overhead and the sun beating down hard
on a perfectly clear spring afternoon. The crowd is about as diverse as can
be, filled with lots of mainstream college students and some heads like me
who knew what this crowd was in for. I can't imagine how this gig ended up
on their US tour.
The show started off with Rob Hall as the DJ. After seeing his noizecore
performance in NYC friday night, I had no idea what to expect from him.
This guy is one solid DJ. He mixed everything from acid to electro to death
metal to reggae to breakbeat to to jazz and madness and screaming and ear
piercing screeches and hardcore. The funniest sight during his set was
seeing some 40-something year old guy bouncing up and down with a baby on
his shoulders while some madness was spinning. And to top it off, he
finished his set with some old school live recording of an Altern-8 concert
from back in the day. Rob looked very amused as he and Sean walked on stage
to begin their journey.
I wasn't sure how serious Autechre was going to take this performance
because of the very off-target crowd. They don't fuck around at all. This
show was one of the most incredible live performances I've ever seen. It
was so much better than their show in NYC a couple nights before. They put
on a serious, kick ass show. Once again I didn't recognize a single track
(except for one that they played the night before). It's unbelievable the
way the time signatures fly back and forth and have the smoothest
transition. They played one track that lasted about 25 minutes (i think)
but it was so thick with sound that you could barely tell that it was the
same track.
The crowd gave them great respect. Lots of applause and screaming. I don't
care about all of the negativity that people seem to be having about
Confield, because this new area of sound that they are in is truly
incredible. I hate to open up another can of worms here, but I don't even
think I can call these guys IDM anymore. They are so far beyond that and I
really believe that they are untouchable now. They've broken down walls and
built music in places that you never thought possible. All the worries
about too many other groups sounding like Ae ripoffs should be completely
gone. Nobody can rip them off now. This is not music that you can picture
in your mind and then mimic. This is two guys talking to their machines and
matching Titanium Powerbooks and then having those machines talk back to
them in some cryptic language that only Ae can understand. The highlight of
my day was being able to walk up to Rob after the show, shake his hand and
tell him that he's incredible. You don't really get the chance to do that
when they play in a club. I'm still amazed at what I saw today.
A perfect outdoor performance and a great day. Oh, did I mention that the
show was FREE?
TekDz9er
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org
For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org