beeps

last night myself and a friend from work went to see LFO, one of the pioneering techno bands of the early 90s, and DJ Rob Hall, a DJ from the SKAM label, at the Temple Bar Music Centre.

overall, it was a good show; it has been ages since I have been to a techno concert and it was nice to get to experience that scene again. What surprised me upon arrival in the main hall was seeing Rob Hall DJing… without using any turntables. I realize that CDJ units and DJing software packages are quite popular these days, but I didn’t expect to see such a thing in use by one of the more popular DJs; usually the top DJs have a very strong vinyl bias. Rob Hall had a Powerbook open and did most of his work on that, though he also had a mixing deck beside the computer. I believe he was using Ableton Live to do the mixing, ’cause that’s what I would use. The mixes were seamless, of course, but then again Ableton all but does the mixing for you, so that is probably to be expected.

LFO were also good. It was fun to hear some of their hits from the early rave scene, it really took me back. Surprisingly there were no whistles or glow sticks to be seen in the whole place, though there was one guy dressed up like in sunglasses and a shiny radiation suit not unlike the ones worn by those guys from Altern-8. Every now and then people would hoist him up on their shoulders and he would pump up the crowd.

one fun experience was climbing up to the balcony overlooking the dance floor. Looking down you could see a sea of people dancing around to the beat. Many of them were standing stock still amidst their jiving buddies and tapping text messages into their cell phones. Looking out over the crowd you could see plenty of them, little lights winking at you from amidst the gyrating crowd. It reminded me of the days people used to hold up cigarette lighters during rock ballads.