I made it to the Thursday night show and I was blown away. A detailed review
follows.
This was the first time I got to see ae live after being a huge fan for
years. It goes without saying that I was stoked to see my favorite idm act
live. The venue was a rather small auditorium with room for about 300 people
max probably. When I arrived Rob Hall was spinning to about 60-80 people. He
played a variety of music, starting out with cuts by squarepusher, plug, and
meat beat manifesto and moving into some average trance and techno.
Technically he wasn't that special and he didn't really get the crowd moving
at all. Overall I wasn't very impressed and neither was the crowd who mainly
stood around or left to go outside. He spun for about an hour and then the
lights were cut (the event was billed as "Autechre in total darkness") and
ae came on.
What can I say about their live set... If they are coming anywhere near you
then you NEED to go see them. Simply put they were amazing. They played 3
"songs" and their set lasted for about an hour and a half. The music was
nothing like I've ever heard them play before. The first two songs revolved
around heavy bass rhythms with stark and deeply textured percussion layered
over. Melodies were almost totally absent throughout the whole set save for
disjointed snippets that occasionally rose to the surface. The main groove
came from hi-hats and clicks with the bass slipping in and out of grooves
and sometimes coming close to total randomness. The sound system was pretty
decent with the bass hitting hard while the highs and mids still stayed
reasonably clear.
The first two tracks revolved around steady pounding bass with all sorts of
digital wankery and knob twiddling (in a good way) over them. The last song
which lasted for probably 30-45 minutes had a sort of erratic rhythm as ae
steadily brought it to an amazing climax. Honestly I don't know how to
describe the sound in words. Randomness gave way to slippery grooves and the
music was constantly changing, shifting throughout a variety of textured
sounds. They played an amazing set as they were clearly in top form. There
is nobody out there who can do it quite like autechre, they are clearly on
some next level ish. They truly made it a special evening for me and I'd see
them again in a heartbeat.
My biggest gripe with the show was with the crowd. They were simply
pathetic. While this show was sold out, I had friends that could not get in,
the venue never reached 3/4ths capacity and it was down to about 1/2 by the
time ae finished. The crowd was a bunch of white kids, most of them clad in
either black t-shirts or hipster retro wear. For some reason there were a
bunch of goth/industrial kiddies there as well and I counted a gaggle of NIN
shirts. They gave ae very little love and the majority of people simply
stood there stoically throughout the whole set. At the end there was a
feeble amount of applause and ae refused to come out for an encore. Needless
to say the vibe was non-existent. I wish that Rob Hall would have played
more noise to scare the kiddies away who didn't know what they were getting
into.
However even the lame ass crowd couldn't spoil the night for me. Autechre
was fucking incredible. I wish that I could do a better job of explaining
their sound, but you really need to go see them for yourself. I highly doubt
that there is another idm artist that can play live as well as they did.
BTW: If anyone recorded their set I'd love to have a copy.
Leif/ace2486/MrMachine
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