(idm) Orbital is secretly punk rock

From Andrew Hime
Sent Sun, Jul 18th 1999, 22:08

Okay, someone asked for a review of the show, and I aim to give you one.
I'll warn you right now, some of the comments may be construed as
negative, so those with weak hearts or those who look to be offended
constantly may want to delete this now.

It was pretty crowded, and through some twist of fate, we discovered
shortly before the show that of myself and the 2 people I was with, 2 of
us had Lower General Admission tickets. Yuh!

First up was Lo-Fidelity Allstars. Saw them at Deep Ellum Live a few
months back. Their set was pretty good, if a bit short. There were some
technical difficulties. Also, I noticed from the first song on, the
problem that ended up really dogging the show for me: the bass was TOO
loud. Ys, this is possible. It was very distorted and dirty coming out of
the speakers up close in the pit, and it detracted from the high end.
Another problem with the Lo-Fis set was that the live drummer was lowest
in the mix, followed closely by the bassist. The keyboardist on the left
(in new Skint shirt - I was in old Skint shirt :) was up way high, and the
scratching and vocals were up high too. Keyboardist on the right was
probably in the middle. This kind of took the spark out of things for me.
I could see the drummer doing his thing, but I couldn't hear it. My friend
and I were pretty amused by the way the crowd reacted when they realized
they were hearing "Battleflag". My friend hadn't heard anything more than
that, but told me he really like "Kasparov's Revenge".

Next up was Crystal Method - I sat down in the seats and tried to ignore
them. Did a lot of math in my head to while away the time. Blah. Their
songs aren't very exciting or interesting at 5 minutes... tedious and
repetitive. Oh wait, a 10 minute version of High Roller/Busy Child/Keep
Hope Alive? No thanks. It was during this set that people started crowd
surfing. Really, grow up...

Orbital - I have to say it up front. This was a full on disappointment. I
saw them at Deep Ellum Live a few years ago, and the sound was much
better, and they seemed to be more in tune with what they were doing.
Here, the bass was still way too loud (to the point I kept fearing I might
turd my pants cause someone would hit the magic frequency) and it didn't
always seem to go along with the song they were doing. The visuals were
excellent, in line with what they did last time but better. There was a
lot of stuff flashing up on screen during "Sad But True" that made me
laugh for its anti-commercialism value. Been listening to those old Crass
records again? I couldn't help but be amused at the thought that Orbital
is really a punk rock band that is too subtle for its own good. People
crowd surfed during this while I was in the pit. Tried to get a shoe off
somebody, but didn't manage it. Some day...

The set list was good, but the version of "Style" they did was pretty bad.
I mean, the first 5 minutes were going okay, but then the bassline got
totally off from reality and was just incoherent. Them mixing "Bagpipe
Style" into it was fun, but I couldn't enjoy it because half the song had
no idea what it was doing. "The Box" was excellent, but then I just love
that song, I'm not sure I could grasp the concept of a bad version of it.
The encore was alright, but I'm starting to tire of the way everyone loves
"Satan". It's an okay song, good groove, kinda funny, but geez... It was
also fun to notice that 75% or more of the crowd had NO IDEA what the last
two songs were... here's your hints, kids, the Dr. Who theme and "Chime".
"Chime" was pretty good too.

Other things - saw a few people I knew, had one guy recognize my Skint
shirt and know what it was (finally! :). Overall, though, my 2 friends and
I all kinda came away feeling like it really wasn't worth the $35ish we
payed. A good light show will only carry you so far. For Lo-Fis and
Orbital, I remain a fan, it was obviously not the best show for either of
them and I can deal with that.

Oh, and DJ John Kelley was pretty dull, I expected much better from what I
know of his mix CDs. But then, I don't much like house music.