Artists: Four Tet, Hot Chip
Venue: North Six, Brooklyn, NYC, NY
Date: September 20, 2005
I originally went and tryed to buy the tickets in person at their box office a week ago, but ended up getting quite lost and walking through Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn looking for the place (or the right train station). When I finally made it to the venue (2.5 hours after I started), it was completely unmarked and no one was there. I left, disappointed, and paid the extra 4 bucks to buy the ticket online. So when I came to the venue on concert night, I was a little worried I might get lost, and perhaps wouldn’t even see the venue this time. However, I got there fine and in plenty of time. The venue was quite small on the inside, with a small bar on the left, a small standing area, and a small set of bleachers behind the dance area at the top of which I sat (right in front of the sound guy). This was also the first concert where I had brought my new camera, so I spent most of the time before the first opener came on (and most of while he was there) to play with the camera.
The first opener was some shitty dj who played shitty music and had his laptop crash 3 times in 15 minutes. I couldn’t be happier when he finally left. Then Hot Chip came on a little later. They were a sight to see: 5 guys standing on stage behind 4 synthesizers, all lined up in a row. One of them was wearing a wife-beater, reminding me a lot of MGMT. This resemblance only grew when they started playing music, although they were defintely much more talented than MGMT (for one, they actually played instruments!). I tried hard to hate their music, as it was really dancey, 80s-ish synth crap with a really dumb looking singer who was too excited and looked like a complete tool with his wife-beater and sun-glasses inside, singing about how Hot Chip rocks and everyone else sucks (I shit you not, those were the essence of the lyrics of one of their songs). However, I just couldn’t do it because their synths were really awesome and their music was just too catchy while still having enough interesting elements to keep me from getting bored.
After they left, this kid with really goofy looking hair (almost an Afro) and wearing a bright yellow shirt saying “India” on it with a picture of an elephant on it started setting up Four Tet’s equipment. 2 Laptops and numerous analog dials and mixing boards later, he started right into the opening track of Everything Ecstatic and my mouth fell open. That kid was Kieran Hebden, mastermind and sole member of Four Tet! Unfortuantely, that was probably the sole shock I had through the rest of the performance, as his endless electronic tweaking and relentless feedback noise cacophonied the rest of the night. He played only 2 songs not on the new album (which is quite crappy compared to his older albums, especially Rounds, which is a minor masterpiece). Although people trying to dance kept getting thrown off with his deliberate beat-fucking electronic feedback loops, eventually they learned and just went with it. Unfortunately, those shenanigans on the analog controllers couldn’t really make up for the poor music of Everything Ecstatic, and so I was fairly disappointed by the time I walked out of the concert, past midnight.
[…] Edan also played guitar, harmonica, and did live analog electronics mind-fuckery, in the style of Four Tet (hmmm maybe White Boy + Afro = 1337 Live Electronics?). Most […]
Specious Logic » Blog Archive » Concert Review: Edan & Prefuse 73
February 20th, 2008