Went down to Marrickville and caught Splendid at Vic on the Park. Never been there before. The place is actually by a park! And it was brilliant. I loved it to pieces. Not the venue. Nothing wrong with it, but the show was brilliant! Well, Splendid was at least. Or one half of Splendid, Angie Hart, and friends. She made a point about how this was not quite a Splendid show.
The first support act I only caught a glimpse of. It was nice, I suppose. For a supposed folk music fan, I still thought a guy and a girl with an guitar each is a bit too simple. It's very easy for a girl with a guitar to sound pretty. But pretty and interesting are two different things and pretty as it may have sounded it just wasn't that interesting. The second guy was a bit dull, save for some kirky/smartarse lyrics in one or two songs.
By the time Angie and friends got on stage, the whole place quit talking and everyone within hearing range was transfixed. Including people walking by outside! Noticed more than a few people walking by the windows stopping and having a look at what was going on inside the place tonight. They could have just came in for $12. Small as the venue was it still wasn't sold out. Though it was packed enough for me hanging round the back to have trouble seeing the stage at times. Keyboards, guitars, some simple samples and loops and an accordion! There was a special atmosphere over the crowd and everyone was so quiet, more than once it seemed to freak Angie out a bit. It felt like one of those magical nights.
By half past 11 the show was over and my night was half way through.
I made my way across town to the Basement in Circular Quay and had a lot of stress just trying to find a parking spot. The place is actually in the basement! Got to love venues with honest and meaningful names. Anyway, apparently the place is usually a jazz venue with tables and chairs. It was dark, crowded and messy with photos and posters all over the walls. A setting I found strangely familiar and comfortable with. But unlike my bedroom, tonight it was playing host to a drum'n bass night. Well, actually, if you drop by my room on any given night, there'll be a good chance I'll be cranking out some drum'n bass on the hi-fi. And if you heard drum'n bass from my hi-fi lately, there'd be a good chance it would be New Zealand group Shapeshifter. (not some UK house music rubbish.)
When I rocked up Shuey from fbi radio was on the decks with Ozi Batla from the Herd on the mic. The bass was extra heavy and there was dancing from the dance floor all the way back to the bar area. Pretty soon I got down and got silly with it. The set was aright, but we were all here for something different from the usual. Something extra special. Live drum'n bass.
According to some in the know, currently the best live drum'n bass act in the world. For me personally, this was a bit of unfinished business as earlier this year I only caught a limited portion of their set when they played the Gaelic Club and it was something that's been troubling me since. I'm easily troubled.
And they blew me away. Best gig of 2004? Possibly. Don't remember dancing like this at any other time during the last 12 months or so. The set starts of wandering around some jazzier sides of drum'n bass. There was even a Nina Simone tune in there somewhere, suitably beefed up of course. Swings thru some swinging reggae styles, but by the forth song in they were locked onto a hard tech-step drum'n bass sound and they tore the place down. For two hours the five piece scorched thru the set with sounds harder and more intense than the typical styles they've laid down on record before. World class, without a doubt.
Life is sweet.