Pole Live at the Justice League
with Neotropic
Friday, june 11
I was very interested to see Pole live: I really like his music, but I didn't
really think it would translate to a live atmosphere, especially at a large
club like the Justice League (high stage, not much seating). Were people going
to complain to the sound man, saying there's too much static and not enough
music? And were like 15 people going to come out?
All of these concerns were unfounded however. First, the place was fairly
packed. Not as crowded as say the Ninja Tune tour a year or two ago, but way
more than for Andrea Parker. And as for the music: I remember a thread a while
back about how Pole's music sounds so different with a good sound system. This
couldn't be more true. The clicks were there, but they weren't the center piece
of the songs: the huge bass and beefed-up melodies took the lion's share of the
sonic spectrum. People were totally into it: some kids were even breaking a
bit.
The first song was not on either CD1 or 2 (as far as I could tell)...it was
kind of a club tune! The BPMs seemed to be up in the 160 range at least, and he
was playing cool synth sounds over it with a 10 button gadget his road manager
said (as far as I could hear) was a Emu Launchpad. He played quite a few songs
from CD2, but they contained a healthy degree of improvisation. He basically
jammed quite a bit. The songs also seemed to be quite a bit faster, but it
could have just been the environment. All in all, he sounded more like a dub
act than an experimental music act...
The biggest issue with live shows for me is always the sound quality...the
sound man usually could give a shit about what the artist wants. So the best
shows I've been to are dub artists, who control most of the levels from the
stage. This was again the case: the volume was perfect, the bass sounded great,
and everything was crisp.
The Justice League crowd usually doesn't clap much between songs: Stefan
however got lots of reaction, and was brought back on stage for two encores
(another very rare occurrence at the JL). after the second one he exclaimed "no
more!" and was done.
Pole is not just a researcher of pops and clicks: he's a performer who knows
how to please a crowd. Instead of playing his home listening music on stage, he
suped it up for a club environ, and the results were excellent. One of the best
performances I've seen in quite some time.
I think he has Seattle and Vancouver left and then he's on to Spain, so catch
him if you can.
(Also, Pole interview coming soon--had to get one plug in there.)
darren