Review: James Zabiela @ B 018 25-07-09

[ziz00_909]

it's 5:45 in the morning..can't see straight.. so i'll post a descent review later on!
but mainly it's something like this:


B 018 last night = OMFG = Massive and Total Destruction of the Crowd(everyone) = James Zabiela Doing What he does best

[ram12]

When i arrived yesterday (at 11h30) the venue was literally empty!

Madjam & Gunstam played till 1H30?(Not sure about the time)

Then the madness began...What a wonderful set !The track selection and mixing was perfect.

But two things pissed the fuck out of me : 1-The visuals: WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU PUT JESUS CHRIST & VIRGIN MARY DANCING? (and stripping).If you have other religious views (and i'm sorry for the insult) but :"Nteko treko la 7alkon" because not only I was upset but all the people around me were pissed.Shame on you mix fm!

2-The drinks : It's not our problem that you lost a lot of money....You Should have given a coupon for each raver.

Overall:The music was great but the organization....lol.I hope everyone had fun

[DiabloK]

was it as crowded as Friday?

[tarantula]

Damn it, i missed again

[ziz00_909]

Ok People!!

I arrived at around 11:15! and it was really empty.. everyone started to talk abt a huge failure.. but as time went by..it was starting to fill up..more and more..
until it got fully packed at around 1:30..

maDJam..started his set with a few tracks that he played on the Friday Warmup.. and then shifted completely ..and his music became more and more powerful..very different from the the night before! .. Gunther covered for abt 20 min(and what a 20min it was).. and then it was maddy again...

At 1:30.. Zabiela Took Command of the Space Ship.. for 10 min..he was just working stuff and adding gadget to the set! like 7 or 8 pieces..!!!
and then IT GOES! .. Track after Track.. Sick and Outta Space Stuff..! the Crowd was jumping for 4 straight Hours!! .. Everyone was happy..
his mixing..the effects he added..OUUUUF! .. . most powerful set i listened to!
He Left at Abt 4:45-5:00 i guess.. ( at that time..my head was way to damaged to keep track of things )..
but not without saying a word to the crowd for the reason he couldn't make it the night before..!

Couldn't stay for the afterhours..but surely it's G&S! so you know what to hear !

Anyways.. it was great organisation.. the setup was great..light were good..laser show: satisfying !
Sounds: i know its outdoors and everything..but i think it should hv been slightly higher! (just to be fair to the tracks zabiela was playing!)
but it was great..

Things that pissed me the hell off..same stuff that ram mentioned before ... the Drink thing... (it's not like i didn't get any drinks..i had a lot ) but it wasn't fair.. the loss of money shouldn't be covered by fucking the ravers
and the jesus and mary thing in the visuals.and honestly don't care abt it and didn't see much care abt it either ..but it's something that some people don't except and it shouldn't have been used!!

well to sum up..Zabiela is one hell of a dj.. that knows what he's doing and how to do it..
Mix should hv covered it better than this! but it was good after all !

[mzy]

Setup was great, although I prefer last year's set up, this time it was too ... bright and colorful ... Lightnings/Lasers were really really AMAZING !
I loved Kaa's visuals, and honestly I liked the Jesus & Mary sequence, it's just 3d animations I don't feel offended at all and it kinda amused me...
I felt that the sound system was worst than friday I donnow why, sound could have been louder in the vip (zone1), I was in the regular all the time, in front of the dj booth also sound was bad, too bassy
the warm up was okay for me, there were some tracks that really doesn't fit, but I kinda enjoyed it ...
It's really a shame we weren't offered at least 1 drink, 3eyb ! lol , the waiter told us that we must pay a minimum charge of 300$ on the table, after negotiating with him we agreed only to pay 1 bottle of vodka , but the waiter was really a badass and khabasit chwey ... I understand that he tells us that James Z**** is not his problem and that we must consider it a regular b018 night meaning we have a table we must pay ! It's not his problem indeed, the blame is to put on MixFm for not offering us at least one drink or every drink at half price ...

now music (Which is the main thing to talk about)
Intro was wicked, no need to say it again, those robotic/futuristic/electric/whateveryoumaycallit sounds were outta this world! it was 2-3min of pure madness! Then, sara7a, I didnt like the first few tracks he played, it was a bit WOZZ, with heavy electro shitty basslines, I wasn't really enjoying it. after chi 30min music became much better. The things that are really amazing in JZ's music are the twisted Vocals with the effects he uses and all the scratching he does and the little edits he does to every track to make it special, he manages to create weird sounds that gives you goosebumps. Then he played 10-15min of Breaks, it was cool, unexpected but it sounded great and crowd was digging the music (although as Nabz mentioned it , crowd was dead). Now what really made me love his set, was the last hour, it was heaven, after the first "Thank You" he played 2 prog tracks that were WAAAAAW (one of them a la Add2Basket, ta ta tara ta ta ta ... lol) that track no way WAAW WAAAW it was heaven ! Now way how he ends his sets, ya3ne even if you didn't like the first part, the last hour would make you LOVE the whole set, and that's what made me LOVE JZ's set! First part was good, last hour was PURE MADNESS/HEAVEN !! really!

Venue was less packed than Friday night, everyone was dead and tired.. I think it was a BIG mistake to reschedule the event the next night.. sorry, but it was wrong. There was no "crowd<->DJ" interaction at all which I guess made JZ stop the music much earlier than thought

G&S warm up last year was ten times better.

They should install "bad-smell detectors" at the door and not allow people who smell bad in. I was suffocating last night!

Friday's Vibes were much more positive, Im sure it would have been 10 times better if he came on friday

[DonSerj]

As a trance fan I didn't know what to expect .. (YES RAM12 MADE ME ATTEND!)
Friday was crowded, the vibe was awesome, but the warm up didn't seem to end lol .. then the news hit us so we left!
I wasn't sure I could attend on saturday but there was NO REFUND so I tried my best and I made it, I was really tired though.

Saturday, at first it was empty, then it started to fill up, not as crowded as the night before .. NO. People were exhausted, so were the DJs I suppose.
The whole idea of no drinks, pissed me off! .. a lot... come on, who would pay 15 000 for a redbull? Thank you but I'll pass.
Light/sound were good. But that video really upset me. It wasn't just Jesus & Virgin Mary dancing, the truth is, at first there was a Virgin Mary, she took her robe off wearing a bikini, and started stripping in front of Jesus (on the cross) and then he got hard. Now that's something you don't see everyday .. what a shame!
Total disrespect, some people should learn how to respect others' beliefs whether they like it or not.

'mzy', what did you find amusing? The fact that it's 3D animation?

Music: friday night's music was out of this world, Gun&Stam blew my head off!
saturday night's warm up wasn't that amazing but ZABIELA is INSANE! uuuf I didn't expect a set like that at ALL! His intro was wicked!

[samlbronkowitz]

re: the visuals:

man people in Leb need to get over the religious sensitivities. I think I actually know the visual your speaking about but seriously: its artistic impression and its not meant to make christians angry, its made to question, to shock to make you shake your head.

I find ridiculous that most likely 80% of BO18 was on something illegal, with over 50% going home and having sex, and yet wanting to shoot the VJ guy for what possibly was 20seconds of a visual. Its hypocritical. Europe which is 10times more Christian than Leb has visuals 50times more shocking than this.

and the "fashionably late" 24hr delayed arrival is a bit of a shocker. Unheard of and I suppose sux for those that coulnd't make Saturday. But seems that people who attended and were able to stay awake had a good time anyway. Frankly I've heard some recent livesets and find him overrated---absurdly technically talented (probably the most talented) but dont know if I can sit and listen to him for 5hrs.

[mzy]

Lol Donserj,
I'm not gonna answer your question, I don't want to start an endless sociological-religious debate ...

There's no message behind the sequence, it's just art and it's not meant to piss off anyone ...

I understand that it made some people angry and shocked, but me it didn't. I don't have to elaborate and explain more to you or anyone else why it didn't affect me and why it was amusing to me ... But if you insist you can PM me and maybe I'll answer.

Sam, I understand why you think he's overrated, as I mentioned in my review his music was nothing special except the effects and his technique ... But the last hour he played sat night were absolutely amazing!!

[DonSerj]

Micky mouse is art

[DiabloK]

thanks for the reviews, nice ones

well i wish i could be as positive but i can't and the reason is that i feel ripped off. Bought 2 VIP tickets for LBP200,000, and believe me, it hurts, especially in July Arrived to B0 on Friday and it's only at 3AM that we knew that Zabiela was not coming and that the gig was scheduled for the following night AND that no refund was possible. 2 of my friends came from the UAE to party on Friday and had to leave on Saturday. I also had something Saturday night. Result: we had to miss Saturday gig and again, no refund was possible, even not a partial one! with all due respect to the organizers' pocket and P&L, it's our right to have the choice of being refunded, at least partially, for a rescheduled event! I called Mixfm on Saturday to ask for a refund. The answer was "there was a force majeur, read article seven on the ticket, in case of force majeure, no refund is possible". Well sorry, but this is not "force majeure"! Anyway, i feel frustrated, ripped, manipulated and disrespected. OK, bravo for the organizers to have been able to reschedule this event on a following night maybe, they could have lost much more money if they haven't. But why should we pay the price of their mistake? why not offering a refund, at least partial, to the people who couldn't attend? it's our right! We paid to see Zabiela on the 24, not the 25! We didn't want 2 parties for the price of one, we wanted one on the 24 featuring Zabiela! Anyway, shame on them. In a country seeking to preserve consumer rights, organizers would have been screwed in a similar case should they have not accepted to refund the people who wanted to, at least partially... or they would have flown away... and the problem is that lots of people find this normal and the "best scenario" to follow :/ no accountability?

Plus as i am reading above, and from the some of my friends' feedback, B0 was charging as a regular B0 night, with VIP tables being charged minimum charge (in bottles ). No one was informed about this prior to the Saturday party. Is this normal?

As for JZ, had the opportunity to see him spinning many times and the guy is a genius, simply. he manipulates the equipment like no one else does, with mastery. he is so gifted both musically and technically, that he creates new sounds and rhythms through scratches, and it all seems so easy and natural. and i was so disappointed to have paid to miss him!

for the visuals, i personally don't really care but i understand that some people can get offended. it's within our middle eastern culture and feelings. It reminds me of a topic here on TH: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=17729 don't know what you guys think of it all, i personally am opinion free.

[DonSerj]

^ Post of the year!

[pouta]

in such a case, usually the organizers are screwed financially, but do they pay the dj , or he comes on his own because he broke the contract , and couldnt make it?

[e-sam]

Force Majeure (French for "superior force"), also known as cas fortuit (French) or casus fortuitus (Latin)[1], is a common clause in contracts which essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as a war, strike, riot, crime, or an event described by the legal term "act of God" (e.g., flooding, earthquake, volcano), prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract. However, force majeure is not intended to excuse negligence or other malfeasance of a party, as where non-performance is caused by the usual and natural consequences of external forces (e.g., predicted rain stops an outdoor event), or where the intervening circumstances are specifically contemplated.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_majeure

Just wanted to clarify the term "Force Majeure" to those who don't know what it means. Although it is not Mix FM's fault but this incident cannot be classified as "Force Majeure". If someone missed his plane that doesn't equate it to an earthquake or act of God. It happens to everyone! Heck it happened to me once

I am glad you enjoyed the night and I'll add my voice to those who criticized the religious scenes by the VJ. NO NO NO!!! Where is the RESPECT in PLUR? When freedom of speech insults & trans-passes others beliefs then it isn't classified as freedom of speech anymore. Culture should be taken into consideration. Whatever works in Europe doesn't have to work in the Middle East. For example you can't run as visuals the slaughtering of cows in India! Sacred idols, things, books, beliefs are not to be dissed period.