GIG REVIEW: Concrete and Glass
- Posted on October 6, 2008 11:41 AM
- 1 comment
Concrete and Glass
Friday 3rd October 2008
Review by Max Hogg
I want to write about SND causing waves of amusing confusion amongst innocent East Londoners. I want to write unavoidably pretentious passages about Vladislav Delay’s mesmerising soundscapes. But seeing as this is a festival review I’ve got a big fat elephant in the room with me and I’ve got to introduce you to her before we go on.
Calling Concrete and Glass a festival suggests that you can move about from venue to venue freely, even if you have to squeeze in at the back in order to see the popular acts. But this becomes a bit more complicated when you’re dealing with the super strict capacity limits on today’s indoor venues, meaning that you can’t just squeeze a few more in.
So when the organisers failed to secure a licence for the Hearn Street car park and moved the much hyped TV on the Radio into Cargo, it was clear that this description of the event as a festival would be a little ‘stretched’. “Get there early” rang in our ears as we picked up our wristbands.
This was something of an understatement. The queue outside Cargo at midnight, an hour before TV on the Radio came on, was several hundred people long and, it being one-in-one-out, had no hope of shrinking. This is understandable, if remarkably frustrating for those who paid their £26 in order to stand in the freezing October night.
But a stationary queue outside the most popular venue is one thing. Stationary queues outside every single one of the venues we forlornly visited at midnight in order to try to get in first to see Fairmont and James Holden, and finally to get in somewhere, ANYWHERE, to get out of the biting wind? That’s not acceptable.
I can think of only one explanation – Concrete and Glass, or the individual venues, sold tickets to more people than the venues could hold. In other words, the festival was set up so that it was absolutely certain that many of the punters who had paid their cash would not be able to attend. Maggi, one of our group who had paid her 26 quid, was understandably raging.
And what a shame, because up until then the night had been fairly promising. Although the programme was little help (patronising and overly pretentious, it was clear that whoever had written the descriptions had never actually listened to most of the artists), we were excited to see that Vladislav Delay would be playing in Cargo. So we headed that way early to hear SND kick off proceedings.
Listening to SND can only be described as like watching someone pleasure themselves: although it’s clear that they’re enjoying it, it all just seems a little unpleasant and unnecessary to subject the rest of us to peripheral involvement.
Yes the sounds they produce through their particular brand of audio engineering are great, but the structure of the tracks that they create live is actually very formulaic. Autechre they aren’t. Whenever I started to actually enjoy myself in their set I felt like I was the butt of someone else’s joke.
So, onto what turned out to be the main feature of the evening.
If NASA ever gets an answer from its SETI programme, the return communication will sound like Vladislav Delay’s set. There is something magical about listening to people talking in a foreign language, and I felt a very similar feeling listening to the noises that Delay was producing.
The music was remarkably inaccessible, having little semblance of melody, repetition, or anything really to latch onto. That it was still hugely enjoyable is impressive to say the least. Throughout his 45 minute long set (squashed to make way for TV on the radio…grrr) he produced the sort of ambient glitchy soundscapes for which he is loved by his admittedly niche group of fans. His music morphed from stuff that sounds like you’re trying to dance in thick, deep mud to an alien declaration of war on the earth, and it was flawless.
It’s just a shame that 45 minutes of Vladislav Delay is all we got for the pricey entrance fee.
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Comments (1)
Editor
Just a quick note from the Editor's vault...
We covered Concrete and Glass in many forms (and little Editor's steps was one of them). While Mr Hogg braved the cold at Cargo, we hit Club 1001 for some sweaty Kimmo Pohjonen (entry: straight forward), then on to 93 Feet East for SND and some fresh air and friend-making in the garden area, followed by a quick stagger via The Hoxton Bar and Grill (line-up: avoidable) towards the Macbeth. The line-up here was about fifteen minutes long which, compared to the Camden Crawl marathon was minimal. Once inside, it was possible to squeeze our way to the front for a beer soaked view of Pete and the Pirates.
Sexbeat DJs played on until we were kicked out at closing time. Sure, I missed Kid Harpoon at The Old Blue Last, Fujiya & Miyagi and Lykki Li but hey, that's city 'festivals' for you.
When all that comes between your wristband and your favourite band is a bouncer, there's nothing more frustrating. Save the set hopping for outdoor fests and use random new band discoveries to the likes of Concrete and Glass.
We didn't see a hell of a lot of music but the night was a top one. I'm keen to hear what others thought...
Posted on October 6, 2008 1:07 PM
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