From Irene McC Sent Sun, Apr 11th 1999, 10:15
From Irene McC Sent Sun, Apr 11th 1999, 10:15
KID KOALA / DJ FOOD / AMON TOBIN NINJA TUNE TOUR [Cape Town leg] The event was scheduled for 8pm and we arrived at the enormous cavernous venue deep in industria at 10:30pm, hoping to avoid the local kwaito (sort of township house) and hip hop warm up acts. They were fully at it when we wandered in, totally swallowed up by the cold and barren interior (okay, so this is 'warehouse raving'?) A separate chill area had been set up in the form of a large tent, held in place on the cement floor by sandbags. Initially they were playing K&D's version of Bomb the Bass' Bug Powder Dust, but soon that area too degenerated into hip hop, which was then booming from both areas and one got a mish-mash crossover effect of the two opposing PA systems booming off against each other. The crowd grew, the mood picked up, and by 12:15 Kid Koala took the mic and made a fitting comment about people hopefully 'not being intimidated by this creepy space' - he certainly raised the roof and dropped jaws with his initial exhibition set. I was unable to see exactly how many turntables he was using, but it was reputedly four and he mixed and scratched flawlessly without headphones - displaying utterly awesome speed, dexterity and confidence. DJ Food excellently cut up and mashed together a variety of beats, which got the people shuffling and moving and by the time Amon Tobin came on with his incredibly dark and moody set, the crowd was going mental. They all took turns, playing again in rotation - apart form the old standard "Summertime" I didn't recognise any of DJ Food or Kid Koala's tunes, although I passed somebody in the crowd word-perfectly lip synching a whole long rap section with a look of swooning joy on his face. Lots of what Amon Tobin played was familiar and quite obviously many others recognised chunks too, at one stage everybody was loudly singing along "da da da" with the melody line as he mixed somethine else into it. The sound system was big and clean (except that it died completely within the first 10 minutes before coming up again) and it was solar-plexus-thumpingly LOUD - I mean... I felt the hairs on my arms vibrate! By the time I left at 4am things were still going strong, although I could not slake my craving for the Hare Krishna's little potato thingies - they'd all sold out. Hopefully we can hold the Ninja's to their promise of this just being the first wave - with a whole lot more to follow! Thanks to all the Ninja crew for taking this step into deepest Africa - we DO appreciate it a lot. I *