The event took the form of a rave in Hall C of the Long Beach Convention center, a huge rectangular cavern with three foot diameter air conditioning conduits hanging down from girders in the ceiling. It looked a little like something out of Terry Gilliam's Brazil inside, apart from the sizable stage set up along one wall and an array of computers light controls and mixers cordoned off by ropes in the middle of the dance area. Since everyone was standing at the same level on the concrete floor, it was hard to estimate how many people attended, certainly at least 7000, perhaps as high as 10,000. Even so, much of the hall was open during the whole event, but that was just fine with the crowd of 20 and 30-something techno hippies, a few with flashy and skimpy clothes, who were there to shake, bounce and writhe the night away.

The doors opened about 8:15 PM and the crowd filed in after the usual search at the gate. Inside a few stage lights were idling around and the DJ smoke kept a perfumy presence through the whole prologue. DJ Jelly's prerecorded mixes (at least I couldn't see him anywhere) were already filling the room with the beat. Quite a few danced in spite of the empty stage. At that volume it was hard to resist.

The Lo-Fidelity Allstars were set to come out first, arriving finally about 9:30, giving the crowd songs mostly drawn from last year's release How To Operate With A Blown Mind. For a techno band they are almost traditional rock, what with a drummer, bass guitar, vocalist and keyboards. The sound was pure dance though, big beat, interesting synth noises, but with live vocals by Albino Priest instead of samples. No matter, I couldn't understand the lyrics, the beat was the most important thing. Their bass player, A One Man Crowd Called Gentile (yes, that's his name on the card, but let's call him Andy) seemed more interested in playing cheerleader to the crowd instead of playing the bass. Too Many Tentacles on keyboards seemed to handle most of the low notes. All in all the number of people dancing didn't change much from DJ Kelley's session.

After a nearly hour long break, Crystal Method, Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan, hit the stage with an enthusiastic welcome from the crowd. Each had their own bank of keyboards to play leads and other effects over rhythm tracks laid down earlier on DAT. Their incredible aural landscapes were supplemented by a terrific light show, consisting of several programmable beam spots that occasionally fired up into a set of five large concave mirrors and off into the crowd. Other punctuations came in time to the music from a battery of about thirty white strobes shining directly into the audience's eyes from the back edge of the stage.

Most of the set was drawn from their 1997 album Vegas, songs like High Roller had the crowd moving in rhythm, but about 25 minutes into the set something blew. Everything shut down on their instruments and the show came to a crashing halt. Techies seemingly corrected the problem only to have a nearly identical crash a few minutes later. After the second fix the music held, but another song after that, a tall rack of equipment tottered and fell backward onto the end of the strobe array. The mirrors above it swayed drunkenly a few seconds but fortunately nothing more fell down. Scott and Ken were busy pounding out notes: I don't think they noticed as it happened. The entire crowd could have screamed but they wouldn't have heard anything I'm sure.

You'd think by the 18th show the crew would have gotten this stuff right, but then again that was 18 shows inside of 3 weeks, not even a full month. I guess they were lucky to be standing after all that. Anyway, later I'm sure Scott noticed the loss. As their set went on, he started tearing instruments out of his rack and smashing them, to the approval of the crowd. Their show lead up to a terrific finale of Busy Child after a solid hour of work.

I really came to see Orbital most. Not to be confused with The Orb or William Orbit, Orbital is a duo consisting of two brothers, Phil and Paul Hartnoll. Their band name actually comes from the local nickname for the M25 highway near their home of Kent, England, and area that was the forefront in the Rave Revolution ten years ago when the brothers released their first album.

The Hartnolls arrived on stage to the strains of Wendy Carlos's classic electronic piece, the Main Title to Clockwork Orange. Both were silhouetted in front of the stage lighting and appeared as black shapes for the whole show, but to help themselves see, plus lend a little eerieness to the affair, they wore bright little flashlights on their heads like glasses. Behind them were six vertically rotating movie screens that showed provocative video clips, soundtrack patterns, and sometimes phrases like "BUY NOTHING" and "BELIEVE NOTHING." The rest of the lighting was fairly normal--small programmable spots showing through the fog. There were also three mirror balls, two out on each side of the stage, plus a huge one about four feet in diameter that was behind the rotating screens and thus revealed itself only occasionally.

From the start of their set, you could tell that Orbital was different from the rest of the drum and bass music heard up to that point. There was more melody, more dynamics going on, yet still atop a very danceable beat that kept the crowd moving. The first songs were Way Out and Spareparts Express from the new album Middle of Nowhere that was released just before the tour started. After that came Impact and I Don't Know You People. The Box from In Sides Followed and then back to the new CD for Otono and Halcyon from Snvilisation and then an outrageous sonic attack called Satan. Their encore was a remix of the theme from the classic British science fiction TV show, Dr. Who and their first major success, Chime.

Indeed, Orbital was fantastic. At one point the crowd was actually clapping along with the beat, something I've never seen any techno band generate before. Too many hip-hop, jungle and other electronified groups think all they have to do is leave the rhythm section on autopilot and layer it with interesting sound effects. The Orbital boys were obviously seasoned veterans at this and had a lot more interesting hooks going on in their stuff, even some actual bridges between sections.

Orbital drove the sound system to its limit. The low notes were so strong it made my sinuses rattle! In close where I was standing some ear protection was a necessity. Still their music cut through my plugs, and it was hard to discern their vocal samples very well. I did detect parts of Belinda Carlisle's' Heaven Is A Place One Earth and Bon Jovi's You Give Love A Bad Name. Five hours in that hall left me more than a few dB short for the next day and a half. After all that I think everyone, including the bands, were wrung dry and happy to go home. Still, it was the most fun I've had dancing in a long time, it was closer to that old hippie sense of abandon than I've been in years.

© 1999 - Rusty Pipes