Well it looks like I picked a doozy for my first review of a live gig, the
Radio Soulwax Fancy Dress Hallowe'en Party. Like the famous quick drying wood stain, and associated products, it does exactly what it says on the tin. When I eventually get there, that is. The gig started at 7 but by the time I arrived it was closer to 9 thanks to traffic problems, then i had a long but entertaining wait in the queue outside surrounded by all types of cartoon character, film character, typical Hallowe'en attire, dead rock star, a sea of Pete Doherty's and a seemingly endless amount of girls who've managed to find the inner slut of all the previously mentioned costume options (except Mr Doherty).
By the time i eventually entered the mass of sweating, poorly disguised, bodies in the Carling Academy i have already missed a fair amount of
DJ Midnight Mike and the entire 45 minute set from
In Flagranti. Note to self, get an earlier bus that only travels along quiet, unblocked roads. At a gig you don't usually bother too much about the person that is essentially a between bands DJ, something that is impossible to do if the DJ is Midnight Mike. I was expecting the same disappointment I felt when I saw
Richie Hawtin "warm the crowd up" for
Orbital, I was wrong. Unlike the Orbital show there was no switching gear about between acts, it was (so I'm told, since I missed the start) a continuous 6 hours of music. Midnight Mike's set was incredibly loud, incredibly pounding and made me remember the days when events like this were held on a weekly basis in a field/warehouse near you. Perhaps being an old indie kid isn't such a bad thing after all.
Despite there being a growing queue outside, the dance floor appears to have been heaving all night. And that is how it stays. There is virtually nobody upstairs at the balcony area, and the bar at the top of the balcony has respected Hallowe'en by looking and acting just like a cloakroom, so I managed to get a good seat right at the front with a perfect view of everything going on around the venue, even stuff I'd rather not have seen. But less said about that the better, what about the music? Loud is a good way to describe it, wonderfully loud is closer to the mark. DJ Midnight Mike has the crowd in his hands and eventually crushes them by introducing a few choice bars from
The Sugarhill Gang's iconic version of
The Shadows'
Apache. You can't keep still while he is on the decks, even the most jaded of people would end up doing a little boogie as he unleashes precision beats backed up by video screens showing everything from psychedelically repeating pumpkins to Aphex Twin videos and clips of blaxploitation movies. It is a perfect blend of trippy visuals and full on "hands up in the air (put your hands up in the air)" beats.
Before
Soulwax take the stage the screens start spelling out the name of their new album (see the review
here) and the crowd starts to prepare for tonight's main attraction. The band wander out to their instruments (drums, banks of synths and a bass guitar) dressed like butchers from a b-movie as Mike winds up his second set of the evening, then the volume drops a worrying amount. Everything i'd heard until then had been inescapable, pulsing up my spine. Soulwax sound a bit muted from the start, a bit like Nigel Tuffnel has decided to show that his amp also works below 11. This doesn't last long though. The synths are doing their stuff, the bass guitar is slowly building in intensity and the crowd are captivated. Then the drums kick in and the missing volume has returned. I have no idea how quickly the following hour seemed to last, but it wasn't long enough.
Nite Versions live used to be exactly that, the Nite Versions album played with no sign of the guitars that originally brought attention the band's way. Tonight is so much bigger than that, It is a gig that is all about the vibe. Horrible word, I know, but the vibe is exactly what people will still be remembering. Rather than just doing tracks from Nite Versions the band are on stage doing live versions of remixes from their latest release as well, there are even a few times when a guitar is used. I could go on about all the tunes they played, but I don't really see the point. Every track is great and flows together like an insane mix tape. Soulwax are proving that they can straddle genres with ease, just imagine the ridicule that would meet an announcement that
The Chemical Brothers are to start recording music as a guitar based indie band. This band are showing a sold out crowd that they can easily do the opposite.
Notable mentions have to go to the section where they lunge into a
Daft Punk medley(complete with Daft Punk lookalikes behind Midnight Mike's decks), the guitar fuelled cover of
Kylie's
Can't Get You Out Of My Head and a storming rendition of
NY Excuses but apart from that, and there were loads of other tracks, it was a gig you had to see to even partially comprehend. That may sound like an "I don't have a copy of the set list" excuse but it isn't, it is the words of someone who knows that a 5000 word essay couldn't fully convey what Soulwax did on stage. They played like they were loving it, looked like they were loving it and I'd hazard a guess that they were loving it. So were the thronging, glow stick clutching, costumed masses (some of whom were brought on stage to shake their money makers alongside tonight's main attraction). And then, all of a sudden, they were gone. As Midnight Mike took his place, for the third and last time, the crowd was chanting for more. That lasted about 2 minutes as Mike began regaining control of the bouncing masses. After such an intense set it really shows how good Mike is that he managed to capture the focus again so quickly. His set was pretty similar to his earlier one, tonnes and tonnes of old rave cliches that were lapped up with vigour as everyone awaited 2 Many DJs. Even the crowd in the balcony were on their feet and trying not to look too awkward as they did variations on
the goth two step or
the Glastonbury acid casualty in the small spaces between the rows of collapsible seats.
After such a great set from Soulwax I thought that
2 Many DJs (Soulwax's Dewaele brothers) would have trouble beating it, they didn't. Hell, they pulled out every stop imaginable while looking like it was as easy as washing your hands. No musical style was out of bounds and they threw in enough of their famous mixes to keep everyone happy. Throughout the night tracks had been taken to the good old fashioned rave standard of a continuous note raising in pitch until there is frenzy on the dancefloor, this set is no different. It has more peaks than a library of books about mountain ranges, It also has some great video mixing. The psychedelic pumpkin is back, but so are cameras that show the brothers in action at the decks. Might sound a bit dull to be continually shown 2 men playing records but it was far from dull as the images were strobed and subjected to what could only be described as visual scratching. The brothers also played up to the camera whenever they could, it really was very entertaining to watch. After 90 minutes, which felt like less than half that, the night was drawn to a quick close, via disco, trance, dance, house, pop, rave, funk and even some
Nirvana.
And then it was all over. We were all spat back out onto the streets looking like we'd just been to the best Hallowe'en party ever, perhaps we had. I certainly can't imagine a more enjoyable way to spend October 31st. The city centre was filled with multicoloured costumes covering very happy people. People will more than likely be raving, no pun intended, about the show and failing as well as I have at trying to describe it. All i can think right now is how much more difficult it would have been to review if they'd played
E Talking.
