From Andrew Smith Sent Tue, Jul 6th 1999, 16:28
From Andrew Smith Sent Tue, Jul 6th 1999, 16:28
Hiya Kids-
Ok, this past sunday i was given the opportunity to see orbital
(along with a couple of other "artists") at the Congress Theatre in
Chicago. It was part of some kind of "Community Service Tour" which
sounded incredibly stupid, and p+p were supported by the "lo-fi allstars"
and the derivative "Crystal Method" eeww...
Anyway, here are my entirely subjective opinions of the whole
thing...
~9:00 pm Lo-Fi Allstars--
Ok, call me biased but these guys weren't anything to get
excited about. Cheap rockstar stage antics (or "carisma," you pick which
term you like best) set the tone for their puerile performance (boy am
I negative). Their bassist was high on something, and I don't think it was
life, thus he kept droping his bass and actually broke it at one point
during the romp. Woo ha. Another thing that distracted me was their
drummer: any dope could see he was (for the most part) only playing the
hats and cymbals. You
either have a drummer or you have a sampler, ain't no way about it, but I
guess some people just have to "rock." Anyway, I wasn't impressed...
~10:30 pm Crystal Method--
Ugh. Until this time I was more or less neutral about this
band. But not anymore, they just suck. Was it just me, or did they play
one
long 30minute track? They never bothered to change patches on their
nordlead, and after the 10,000th zow-wow-wakka-wow pseudo-303 cutoff
tweak, I was
ready to break some fingers. Ack, I've never seen such an overuse of an
other
wise delightful effect. I was actually getting pissed, then they started
beating up their synths, which I was a bit confused about: if they break
their gear they wont be able to torture me any more, but then that woudl
be a waste of some perfectly good piece of gear, which is no good.
But I guess this ties in with the whole "carisma" thing, and as one list
member standing next to me put it "It's like watching Third Eye Blind on
synths." damn. I guess the palace of culture really was built out of
dogshit. Fortunately, their carismatic set was short
and they left the stage and orbital was able to
get set up.
~11:30 pm Orbital--
I guess they were having some technical difficulty setting
up, but after a bit of a wait the brothers hit the stage opening up with
the first track of "Middle of Nowhere" which was a pretty good opener. Zok
pow, new twists on old songs, etc. Halcyon with the Bon Jovi and Belinda
Carlisle(sp?) samples, old yes, but still a lot of fun. I liked Impact a
lot too. Unfortunately, they played one of the tracks off of MoN that I
always skip, but the visuals were pretty cool (delightful corporate
slogans given a lovely marxist spin), so I payed more attention
to those than the song. Another low point was Satan as part of their
encore. I guess they figured that american kids are hardcore and enjoy
hearing "Satan! Satan! Satan!" ad infinitum, but again the visuals rocked
so I put up with it, and then they redeemed themselves with "Dr. Who" at
the end, which only 1/4th of the crowd understood, but it was a lot of
fun none the less. But man, their set was way too short!! Argh! I could
have watched them for another couple of hours, but fortunately I'll see
them at the PA show, and hopefully I'll get my fill.
On a side note, I was appreciative of orbital's professionalism
and low-key stage presence. While the other "acts" (a fitting term) were
going nuts breaking synthesizers and saying "let's fuckung rock chicago!"
orbital just said "hello, sorry about the wait", no smashing or wackyness,
but you could tell they love their job. And that's what it's all about.
%andrew
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