I saw the Orb in chicago last night. I must admit I was a little bit
disappointed although at times they really got some grooves going. The sound
quality was good. The bass was HUGE and booming. The lights were nothing out
of the ordinary. Overall I'd give it a B. I'd heard the orb had been going on
late at previous shows so I got there around 10:30 to find the band had already
started. The early part of the set was so hard I thought it must have been a
DJ. The new LP has no songs clocking over 89 bpm, but the whole first half of
the show was driving, pounding and angst ridden slamming home over 130bpm. it
was like someone threw a rave and told the orb to do their best to fit in. Its
not that it was bad music. I had come to hear some dub. Breakdown of the show
was ~75% fast pumping techno: 20% Dub: 5% Noodling. The crowd really didn't
seem to know what do do during the noodling. Midway through the show it
settled into some slow funky stuff. The high point was a song which sounded
like it was based on Plateau, but much more hip hoppy. Anyone know what this
was? I could recognize it. Then we were given some fairly recongizable
performances of orb standards. Little fluffy clouds sounded pretty much right
off the Aubrey mixes at times.
The atmosphere was wierd. It was reallly like more like a rave with a cameo
than a show. A large number of people were just wandering the hall oblivious
of who was playing seemingly not caring that the band they paid to see was on.
Heck, a large fraction of the people there we probably in sixth grade when
"Adventures.." came out and were just making the scene.
The idol worship was another phenomenon I wasn't expecting. People would cheer
for samples they recognized like the whole fluffy clouds monologue. It was
funny to see as sometimes the samples were not actually part of the song.
Everyone would cheer thinking they'd hear whatever they thought it was, and
the orb would just stand there noodling. The orb tended to give into this al
little to much for my liking by playing several songs relatively intact. I saw
the orb in Brixton back in 1991 on the Adventures tour and that show was more a
complete reworking of the songs. Even though I had listened to the LP millions
of times, the versions were so removed from the recordings as to be new. This
time there were a few brilliant reworkings, but it was more like a recital.
Finally the Orb ended around 12:30. About a 2.5 hour set. Then it really was
a rave. The music was hard and loud. Much to my suprise they closed
everything down around 1:30! I had heard the shows were running late, but not
here in chicago. For $20 I thought it was a pretty lame to send everyone home
so early. Had I known what I was going to get for my $20 I probably would have
spent it on records.
The new Orb 12" for oxbow lakes was a better value for the money, only $9 and
all of it's good.
--
Mark Bowen
mb@gettins.bche.uic.edu
"The universe," said [the devil], "is a Ph.D thesis
that God was unable to successfully defend."
-James Morrow