On Sun, 2 Aug 1998, Jeremy Axon wrote:
quoted 1 line uh, just got back from the OPera House. Nice set by Autechre.> uh, just got back from the OPera House. Nice set by Autechre.
Feh. I found last night's Ae show in Toronto to be one of the worst live
events I've ever experienced. The evening started out OK (albeit an hour
late) with a half-decent set of minimal techno spun by Algorhythm. But
then the sound system cacked out, and the only sound for a good 20 minutes
was from the stage monitor. And when they finally got it back, it sounded
even worse than I imagined it would be.
Theorem did a pretty nice set, but by the time he played, the place had
filled up, and some of his sounds were so subtle that I could barely hear
it over the crowd noise.
And then more people arrived. And then even more. And by the time Autechre
started, the place was packed to probably 2 times legal capacity. Between
the heat, the crowd, the smoke (cigarette, pot & never-ending smoke
machines), the crappy sound, and the generally innapproriate atmosphere
for an event of this sort, I just got crankier and crankier, and ended up
leaving about an hour into Ae's set (which was OK, but not nearly as good
as their '96 show).
Let this be a lesson to all Toronto promoters - The Opera House is fine
for live bands or more "party" oriented gigs like the Ninja shows. But for
an event like last night's that was supposed to be "dark & minimal", it
was a very, very bad choice.
Greg