The Wax Conspiracy

Mutual Slump {DJ Shadow - Hordern Pavilion - 07/12/02}

If I'm at a concert, there is a good chance that Jimmy Weasel (of Wax fame) and Compadre (of no fame) will also be in attendance.

Usually when gigs finish, we (mostly Compadre and I) dissect every aspect of both the gig and what it meant to us. However, after DJ Shadow there was no such dissection.
I think that subconsciously we realised that we would never be able to articulate what we had seen in any meaningful way and that, certainly, any attempt to do so would never do DJ Shadow justice.

Concerts, for the most part, are very existential affairs. It's hard to remember both what was played and how it was played.
Case in point: NOFX earlier this year. I can't really remember what songs were played or in what order but I do remember the gig being absolutely amazing.

This is especially true of the DJ Shadow gig. Being that DJ Shadow is in fact a DJ and that on his resume it probably lists the mixing of records as one of his skills I suspected that there would be much in the way of experimentation and that live, his songs would sound different to his studio stuff. This was for the most part true although Shadow demonstrated that, when he wanted to, he could make what he was playing sound exactly like what it did on the record.
It's almost impossible to determine exactly what he played as, at any given time, songs were interpolated with completely different songs and mixed together. Sometimes two whole songs were completely mixed together and sometimes a song was played during which samples from different songs were incorporated into it and incorporated so well that they may as well have been recorded that way.
One of the most amazing segments of the concert involved DJ Shadow grabbing two songs, one a hardcore hip hop song, the other featuring a slow breakbeat and swapping the vocal tracks. The result of which was a hardcore hip hop song with slow haunting vocals followed by a slow breakbeat song with rapid fire rapping.

Of note:
1.The monitors would show the footage from which a sample was taken as Shadow would use that same sample.
2.His technical wizardry (the scratching, the bipping, the bopping etc).
3.The fact that the man used a live sampler + various tables (both record and CD) to do what he did.
4.I remember one bit where Shadow played a sample of a record being scratched and halfway through he began scratching the same record live. The switch between sample and live was seamless.
5.He sped up a song ('Fixed Income', if I remember correctly) to a breakneck speed.
6.He had a little pad with pre-programmed samples with which he would create a beat. He had this connected to a monitor which showed the source of the samples as he played them (in this case a 'learn how to play drums' video'). This means that as DJ Shadow dropped a beat the guy on the screen (who, incidentally, had a mullet) would play what Shadow played.

On a whole too much took place at that concert to go into and though I may never be able to fully comprehend what I saw and heard but I do know that it will go down as being one of the happiest days of my life.

It's weird, but the things that stand out the most from that night are the conversations that I had with my friends. There was the obligatory discussion of hip hop culture and music that I always have with Compadre and that always seems to be sparked the choice of records that the opening DJ plays.
I remember Weasel and I laughing at the weird hippy dude who danced like his heart was fibrillating and I also remember Compadre and I laughing at the dude who was dancing like a nonce in front of us.
Unfortunately I also remember our collective disbelief at the racist behind us (and to the left) who countered DJ Shadow's call for peace with 'yeah, fuck all Muslims'. Compadre's response was spot on: 'Does he even know where he's at?'. It seems that ignorance can have good taste too.
Compadre had earlier heard a girl bragging about how she had spun some friends out because she had decided to not go to homebake so that she could go to an 'underground hip hop' concert instead. This led me to believe that the people attending weren't going to be solely DJ Shadow or music fans.
This was further compounded by the hesitant response that DJ Shadow got when he mentioned 'Solesides' or 'Preemptive Strike'. Everyone went nutty when he mentioned '...Endtroducing' or 'The Private Press'. No one knew the earlier stuff.
It seems that there were quite a few people at the concert who were either incidental fans or were there for the instant hipness factor.

Concerts, for the most part, tend to abstract. This is primarily true because every moment dies as quickly as it passes. Given that the music is such a variable and that the crowd is such a variable, the only concrete reality that exists at a concert is whatever connections you have with those you happen to be with.

Had I gone alone to that concert it would still have been technically and sonically amazing and probably worth twice what I paid to get into it, but shared, the night was almost spiritual.

All apologies to Chloe Maxwell.

Belvedere Jehosophat

Reviewed on Wednesday, 18 December 2002

The Wax Conspiracy

Related

Tagged

Categories

Other reviews by Belvedere Jehosophat