Artists: SABRESONIC with The Sabres of Paradise & DJ Andrew Weatherall
Date: Thursday 12 May 1994
Venue: Newcastle University Sudents Union
Cost: 7.20 quid
Review:
Well, I really didn't know what to expect from this night. I hadn't heard
any Sabres stuff before and had heard rumours that those nasty guitar
things were involved (true) so I basically went to see if Weatherall is
as good as he's hyped up to be. In actual fact he's better...
To put in a bit of background; our Union has been having lot's of
internal strife about licences and open door policies and stuff, this was
one of the very few nights in the year that was open to the general public
(so it wasn't full of pissed up Agric students). The Ents guy at
Newcastle is a bit of an Indie/grunge/soap dodger type (we love you
really Darryl!) who doesn't like to put 'dance' night's on. Somehow his
committee got this one past him... also 2 x Megadog (well that's a bit
soap dodgy :), several big all nighters and DJs like Colin Patterson, Greg
Fenton, Kelvin Andrews. So I suppose we've not been doing too badly
recently...
Nuff waffle...
I arrived with friends at about 10pm and got the bad news straight away,
we'd been diddled wrt licence times and instead of being 8 til 2am they
changed it to 7 til 1am. With about an hours notice. What a con. But then
I expect that from our union. This did not put me in a good mood...
Wandering down to the Basement I was to be futher disappointed with the
poor turnout. Oh dear. 7 quid down the drain...or so I thought.
The Basement is the lowest level in the Union Building and I think it's
an excellent venue, underground, with quite a low roof, raised section
along one side with tables for chilling out and a smallish low stage at
the front.
The Sabresonic crew had decked it out magnificently; 2 huge projected
backdrops cordoning off a smallish dance area in front of the stage, the
projections weren't up to Megadog/Orbit standards but were pretty good
any way. They'd also brought 2 huge speaker stacks with then and these
towered maybe 10 feet high either side of the stage...by now I was
beginning to perk up a bit :) I like big speaker stacks!!
The DJ ( as yet unidentified but presumably DJ Alex Knight the warm up
guy) was playing some REALLY hot tribal dubby thumpy stuff. I hadn't
really heard anything like it before. Not techno, not really trance or dub
but a blend of all 3. Now beginning to feel a bit like dancing...
The crowd just suddenly came from nowhere really, one moment there were
the usual 5 nutters tripping their tits off all alone; then bam! I'd
turned away for a chat and 2 mins later the place has gone wild!
Everybody who had been skulking round the side must have all thought 'fuck
it I supposed I'd better dance at some point' at the same time. The DJ
turned up the pace, things got more technoey and everyone responded. I was
really getting into proceedings but was almost completely distracted by a)
Wondering where all these people had come from (it was now very full) and
b) The amazing things the DJ was doing with his records. This guy could
mix. Seriously mix. I thought at first he must have 3 decks, but no, just
2 and a hideously complicated looking mixer, he was playing a record then
bringing in another on top for ages, then all of a sudden they'd gone and
another had appeared with out you noticing but then bamn back came the
other 2. I mean HOW many hands did this guy have??
And the tunes!! Good stuff, old stylee with new. I think he played No-UFOs ,
I'm not sure but that melody has been swinging round my head for days.
The DJ continued to build up , almost to to a gabbaesque pace, then cut
everything, it's time for the Sabres of Paradise...
And I'm sorry, I thought they were pretty crap. Yes, they had guitars (a
guy in a long black leather jacket on a huge bass guitar and a shifty
looking guy on a lead guitar with a big distortion pedal thingy. Who said
you need skill to play the guitar? All this guy did was waggle a finger
across strings randomly and rock his foot on the peddle a bit. For a total
of maybe 10 mins in 50. Rest of the time he just looked moody and swung
his shoulders about a bit). The rest of the group was a short guy in a
cool Bastard Bunny T-shirt behind a Korg MC 01 (or something like that)
and an unidentified Roland. The really cool guy was the drummer. He had a
snare, hi-hats, bongos and a few synth pad things. The other bloke stood
behind a mixing desk and was basically responsible for co-ordinating
everything.
The first track they played had some guy rapping over it (apparently this
was the theme tune from this years London Marathon). Oh dear vocalist alert!!
Fortunately he buggered off after the first track and the rest of the
stuff was pretty much in the same vein but with out vocals, ie heavy (and
my god it WAS heavy through those speakers) bass guitar line with good
drum bits, synthy bits and the odd distorted guitar bit. This went on for
a hour or so.
Actually they weren't that bad but its not my kettle of fish but I was
begining to get into it a bit when they finished. Now this was where it
got VERY interesting. I figured the next DJ *must* be Weatherall, there was
only just over an hour left, sure enough on he came, I recognised him and
in fact realised he was the awesome DJ who'd been on before.
He got even better. Sabres left their drum machine going with a very
minimal bass/hihat loop going, and fuck me if he didn't beat mix into
that ( I told you this was an impressive mixer he was using) flawlessly
and then he appeared to started to play bits on a key board ( with the
record still going and then Oh my god the drummer came back on,
apparently unprompted and fiddled with microphones for a bit before HE
joined in as well with bongos over this acidy record whilst Weatherall
played this keyboard. Crazy!!! I'd never seen anything like it before,
devasting effect the crowd (and me) was going bonkers with the rhythym,
Weatherall mixed into another record and the drummer kept it up, this time
on a snare, all perfectly mixed it was an amazing amalgam of live
instruments, keyboard and records. This drummer just tranced out and
started played the whole lot, bongos, snare, hihats, all adlib, over these
records. Brilliant effect, the balance between drummer and record was
just right so the sound was stunning.
Eventually the drummer had had enough and went off (to wild applause)
then Weatherall switched into what appeared to be mad mind fuck acid
mode, and stayed there for the rest of the night.
The mixing just went into another planet not even a hint of a dropped
beat, the whole night was just one seamless acid bath. He did things I
could even begin to do; with records going backwards (his best trick was
to spin records backwards...into a beat mix when they spun up again!! Don't
try this at home kids!) All through his set he kept using this keyboard
for sound effects as well.
The Sabres had all started dancing with the crowd by now and were having as
good a time as everyone else. Weatherall built it up to an absolute
inferno of acid (I thought I was going to pass out with 303 overload)
and then dropped it again before, !bang! for a final melee. He did things
with Mike Dunn - Magic Feet that took him to a higher plane. In and out
it came for ages and ages, building everyone up, he reprised it later on
and I swear several people passed out with delight!
What a night. Finally all finished at about 1:15am.
Epilogue:
Chatting to the girl who organised the night the following day I get some
insode info...
Apparently their first gig (Manchester or Birmingham I think) was a bit of
a disaster with only 200 turning up, so they were already down when they
arrived in Newcastle. They aren't very happy with the London scene either
(Southerners take note!) Weatherall appearently said "it's all blokes and
they're all coke heads". Hmmm sounds like fun. So they were really
surprised by the happy, mixed, attitude free crowd up here and they all
really got into it. Which everyone could see. She said the Sabres
vocalist had told her it was the best gig he'd played.
She'd also apparently told Weatherall to play it as hard as fuck. He
obliged and now joins Dave Angel in my Pantheon of Techno DJ Gods.
greg
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