Further to my rant, I attended Fabric's birthday party tonight after another wicked Bleep (Emile/Plant 43 played a very nice set). Got there around 12:30 - line around the block. I wouldn't have gone unless I was lucky enough to get guestlist via a friend, but that is what typically makes it enjoyable. I usually hate that crap - but @ Fabric you normally have a bit of a reprieve up there, with a great view of the dancefloor and no hassle. However, it was so unbelievably rammed (I'd estimate nearly 200 people over capacity) that there was a 15-20 minute wait for drinks up there and you could hardly even move in that 'exclusive' space. There must've been *at least* 250 'VIPs'.
To state the obvious, it was even more packed downstairs. At 3:15 LFO live came on, and it was a perpetual fight just to stay put, about 10 deep from the stage. At one point, some f*cker barged up behind me and said 'come on - give us some space', so I turned around and screamed 'THERE IS NO F*CKING SPACE'! It was rather annoying. Nothing new for Fabric but amplified beyond the usual levels of chaos. Anyway... LFO live was not so much 'live', as it was a bizarre hybrid of DJing and live performance. It was fantastic though. He started out with some proper, reminiscent-of-mid-'90s-Mark-Bell-minimalism, which switched back and forth between that and his newer brand of noise-coated electro, mixed with a healthy dose of jack. His 2nd or 3rd track (if you could call it that - the whole thing was seamless and integrated over long periods) was a really varied minimal techno track that very well could have been his, but on the 7th and 8th beat of every few bars the whole track would drop out and that LFO sub bass sound from 'LFO' kicked in. Seriously mind-bending. A few minutes later he was well into some other song and the primary synth line from 'LFO' kicked in. This kept up for a while, with special emphasis on the Chicago jack, then about 30 minutes in he got really into noisey IDMish electro territory, then came back out into a switch back and forth between that and electro stage, and then suddenly it was over after 45 minutes. Very sudden. He played a couple tracks off the new album along the way as well. So... we ran over to the other room to catch the last 1/2-hour of Villalobos (through some feat of unbelievably crappy scheduling, LFO was 3:15-4:15 and Villalobos was 3:30-4:30 in the other room). WTF??? Anyway, when we got in he was playing this really crappy electro song, but after that he settled into a very Chicago-sounding Perlon style for most of his last 1/2-hour, which really hit home. Very nice conclusion! I will make a point of finding him again. Then I left well before the 10am finish. In the end, I came out feeling like it was a great night, despite the even fuller and wankier crowd than normal. I guess if you're seeing something once in a lifetime like LFO live, you make do with an annoying surrounding. I think that explains a lot of why a club like Fabric can maintain. Tristan ======= http://www.phonopsia.co.uk [EMAIL PROTECTED]
