The last time I had gone to Los Angeles specificially for a concert/rave was
to see The Shamen and Moby perform at the Spruce Goose in January of 1992.
A lot of h2o had passed under the proverbial archway since that time. My
friend John and I had built up the rave scene in Salt Lake City from nothing,
then left to pursue other interests, like the all consuming vocation of
running an Internet Service Provider.
Yet, with a lineup like Organic '96 was touting, who could resist? It was no
wonder to see cars from Virginia and Illinois in the parking lot. Nothing on
this scale had been attempted before in the states. So, over four years since
I had driven to Los Angeles to jump start my own rave juices, and nearly three
years since the incredible NASA tour stopped in San Francisco, John and I once
again rented a car to drive the all night drive.
Orbital has always been a favorite for me. For those of you who haven't been
keeping score, I managed to book them in less than a week on their first tour
with Meat Beat Manifesto and Ultramarine, then lost a considerable amount of
money on a town without a clue. Yet it was worth the price. Orbital later
stated that that single stop, although quickly scheduled, was their favorite
from their first tour. In spite of all promoter attempts to keep them out of
Salt Lake City since, they have continually expressed a desire to return. It
did happen again, the promoter calls, I put in a bid, only to find out that
San Francisco had moved their date over ours. The last time the agent felt
that Moby was worth far more than I desired to pay. In just about every
instance, the band's wishes come last when booking a tour is involved.
The agent was, however, conciliatory in the fact that she did offer to get me
passes to the show. Whether this actually happened or not was moot, since the
list never arrived at the show. I was happy to pay the price to get in, but
pissed off that I had to stand around waiting for an hour to find out that it
had fallen through. In case you've never seen whining in action, hang around
a "will call" line in Los Angeles for an hour.
I did meet up with a couple of the "regulars." Lazlo Nibble had managed to
scrape his butt out of Albuquerque to get there, and of course Mr. and
Mrs. Greg Earle were in fine form. I was also pleased to finally meet the
legendary Paul Moore, editor-in-chief of the rag we all knew and loved,
Technology Works, as well as the guilty party behind nm-list. Aside from the
obvious dust problems with the area, the setup looked good. I was happy to
see that there weren't so many people there that you could get in a good
position to see the stage and not feel like a rehash of the Star Wars "garbage
compactor" scene.
Looking over the schedule for Organic, it made me wonder what idiot had their
hand in this mess. The bands were supposed to play from a measly one hour to
two, then they were going to "rebroadcast" performances from tape?!? What
kind of balogna is that? Not to mention the liberal sprinkling of DJs who all
wanted their 15 minutes, who in fact, nobody but the most Vicks smeared
kiddies had come to listen to. Thankfully, the bands wouldn't have any of it,
and they played enormous sets with no minding of the schedule. Everything was
back to back, save for the moving around of equipment, which took around 30
minutes on the average.
I missed Electric Skychurch, so no review there. Instead, I came in about 20
minutes before one of the Chemical Brothers wandered around the audience being
swamped by fans, and 10 minutes before Loop Guru took the stage. Seeing the
size of the band, six people, intrigued me with what exactly was going to take
place. The beat kicked in, and yes, it was good, but what in the hell were
they doing? It was questionable as to whether any of the numerous drumsets
were miked at all, and if they were, did anyone bother to level them near what
the beatbox was at? Why was the lead dragging around a guitar, Bono-like,
with no sound coming out? I was really looking forward to a smattering of
ethnic instruments, but instead what we got was a puppet show to a crushing
beat. The one thing I could hear was the female lead attempting to strangle
herself on the microphone. She didn't exactly exude confidence in her
abilities, and ended up shrieking like a scared cat most of the time. Loop
Guru was an enormous disappointment.
Meat Beat Manifesto arrived and kicked bootie with their normal level of
confidence. The band was minus Johnnie, but had an additional keyboardist and
guitarist. What the guitarist was doing with the saxophone remains a mystery,
but the sound was still good. Jack once again, orchestrated everything from
his enormous road box on an angle. It was surprising to hear them roll of so
many of the older tracks, "Helter Skelter", "Radio Babylon" and a couple
others, but only a few from the new album. "Asbestos Lead Asbestos" was not
performed. The video behind them was above par rave-style stuff, but still
had plenty of visuals directed towards Meat Beat.
I managed to catch Paul Hartnoll watching the show during Meat Beat. He did
lament that this tour was too short and mentioned the possibility of a second
leg in the fall, either of Europe again, or the states.
The next band, Underworld, was introduced with a large hullaballoo. I'll
never figure out why people have forgiven them for their incredibly bad Fruer
days, or even the early leather years of Underworld. "They're solid techno now
though," I suppose the cry would come, even if they have a mostly useless
singer flailing around the stage. Underworld opened with "Rez" and continue
to pound out their (recent) hits. It sounded and looked great, but the
intensive, determined knob twiddling of the two guys behind the music (Darren
and who?) bothered me. There is only so much working of a mixing board that I
can stand before the question is asked, "What the hell are they really doing?"
The video made up for a lot of this. Someone obviously had a lot of time or
patience to work in all that lettering. Last, comic relief was provided in
the end when this woman in a dancers dress arrived on the stage to give us her
expressions of the music. It hurt to laugh so hard.
The Chemical Brothers arrived and promptly kicked everyone's ass. They
weren't there to entertain us with 303 mutations, there were just there to
drop incredibly funky crushing drum beats with the subtlety of a Panzer tank.
This was the best set yet. Their attitude oozed from the stage while their
stage hands picked females from the audience to gyrate to their workings.
Dance music with rock n' roll aspirations. Their visuals were equally subtle.
Cops beating up on crowds, large ground canons, bombs, war, death, and further
indications, that yes, The Chemicals were here to kick our ass. They only
band of the night to get an encore, yet they didn't care. They returned to
the stage, regarded their audience with disdain and continued to kick further
ass.
After an ultralame intro from a KROQ DJ, Orbital took the stage in darkness.
In the anonymity of darkness, they remained, with the customary tecnicians
glasses shining through. Paul had added a pen laser to his to good effect.
The Intellibeams fixed on either the round or the square gobo to project
tunnel-like color in a constant mode. They had also added two silver
projectors which shot the Orbital "loops" logo out on both sides. This was
all unimportant to the centerpiece, the video, the loops, and the slides.
Words can not describe what the visuals did with the audio. It was in essence
like watching a fascinating, ever changing jewel. I felt the fear of blinking
in case of missing something. Without a doubt, this was the best visuals I
had ever seen at any concert. They should immediately package it on laser
disc and release it to the public, works like that should not be canned
never to be seen again. What was even more amazing about the visuals is that
there wasn't a computer generated frame in site. How someone could make a
salad slicer into such a work of beauty is beyond me, but it happened. Back
that up with Orbital's music and it freezes you into a state of gaping awe.
The set was hardly danceable, and it was so above that. Royal Albert Hall
indeed, Orbital deserves to play in better places than dusty arenas and
smoke-filled clubs. With this tour, they have ascended into a different kind
of artistry.
After an hour of breaking down Orbital's stage, The Orb came forth. I must
admit that I was hesitant to see them, the last time being before "Live '93"
came out. Then they were still considered more in the "Adventures" phaze of
things and not so much the "Orbus Tyrannus" form. I had in fact skipped
seeing them on "Orbus Tyrannus" because of my disappointment with the album.
It never clicked for me. Orb's stage looked startling similar to their 1991
tour. Sheets over tables, side-by-side and no backing band. Then the use of
slide projectors and simple Intellibeam gobos harkened back as well. The most
surprising thing was to see Thrash at the controls again. He has frequently
expressed his boredom with touring, up to the point of stating that he was
going to stick to the studio side of things, but there he was. Alex and
Thrash played a lot of new stuff, or at least unrecognizeable stuff.
According to man-on-the-scene, Lazlo, a lot of what was played is due on the
next album, which is a relief. It is a return to a more beat-laden form.
Three or four of the tracks were downright fluffy. There was a rather cool
remix of "Spanish Castles in Space" and a bit of "Star 6,7,8,9" plus a
baffling cut from KLF's "Chill Out." However, by 6:00 AM in the morning, John
and I were both tired, cold, tired and cold. All I could think about was "I
drove 700 miles, and I'm going to stay" rather than "Orb! Orb! Orb!" So we
eventually gave up. When we drove out of the parking lot, they were still
playing. A lot of what was played was more than just ambient noodling, but
rather big fat dubby drum lines, which at that time in the morning on a cold
empty stomach, can have a rather negative effect.
All in all, a great experience. I can only wonder if further Organics will
prove to be more of a festival than a rave. It was a bit like a time trip to
see that culture again, but a pleasant one at that. We'll see next year.