Review: Use Your Illusion 001

[Genesis]

... and I thought Infected Mushroom had it all.
Thought that Duvdev & Erez are the sole masters of the psy scene.
Thought that Infected Mushroom are the very best in what they do.
Little did I know that live performances in psy would be all of similar skill and just as demanding from the producers as it is from the crowd.
It wasn't the 1st time I crash into a live psy gig: I've had my nights before from Astrix, GMS, Wrecked Machines, Infected Mushroom, Xerox & Illumination and others and they were all just as splendid as this, only this time we had so much of a variety throughout the night. From progg-psy to full-on psy and ending with Alien Project and morning psy at 6:30 am!
Last Saturday was nothing but another strong proof that psy is here to stay, grow, and yet stay as addictive as ever. Saturday night was a blast that I could relive every single day. A night that I knew I'd enjoy, a night where I saw Timelock, X-noize, and Eskimo for the 1st time along with good old Alien Project ripping the 2-story venue appart & burning out every shred of sanity in about 2000 psy brains. Yes - Not a staggering 10,000 clubber: 2000 only, but knowing where the hell across the universe they're going to and what on earth brought them to this event.

I arrived to Wandsworth Palais at about 11 pm. I already missed the opening set by Vlad but was just on time for Chriss & Simo. Progg-psy was pounding the half-empty dancefloor while I queued for the cloakroom that would be facing the dancefloor and thus turned me back at the stage. I, just like everybody else, was waiting to hand out my coat but the music was so damn delicious! We started nodding in the slow-moving queue, humming, then gradually dancing. The party started in the cloakroom rather than the dancefloor for some of us (not that we're complaining!) but we felt like missing out on an excellent set though we were still enjoying every single beat. 15 minutes later, I was in the dancefloor and quickly took a tour to discover the place. Wandsworth Palais is an old theater (just like the Stanford Rex where Infected Mushroom had their gig back in November): three staircases for the stage, two bars at the dancefloor and a staircase to the 1st story that has a balcony and a bar at the corner, then another staircase from there that leads to the lounge on the top story. I went back down to the dancefloor and up to the stage snapping photos and awaiting Timelock to took over the gear for his set. Chriss was pulling one heck of a warm-up for about an hour followed by a more trippy set by Simo. The later wouldn't stop moving behind the decks, but there seemed to be a problem with the decks that requiring the main sound engineer and Timelock to check things out, nevertheless, it never reflected on the twisted sound booming from the speakers across the dancefloor.

Felix Nagorsky (Timelock) approached the 'production deck' (set just ahead of the DJ deck where Simo & Chriss were spinning earlier on), pulled out his laptop, connected it to the main mixer, then made a quick sound check with the sound engineer and Barak Argaman from X-noize. One of the things that stole my attention that night is the ending of every set: whenever a set was over, the music would stop for about 30 seconds - the set is over, the music goes off and the crowd cheers and applauds for the DJ while the DJ thanks them back, the next DJ then moves in and takes over the show with his set; so, it's not bang on from a set to another. Felix kicked things in at about 1:45 am slamming the dancefloor with the latest from his album (Power Charge, Brain Spawn, Un:balanced, Energy Sequence, and Flying to name a few), moving between the laptop, mixer, and korgs in the semi-circle around him so easily what doesn't perfectly match his chubby build. The Fat Bastard burned us out for an hour with a pumping 140-148 bpm range of tunes and closed his set with his monstrous remix of Infected Mushroom's Cities of The Future: the crowd was all over the place for the tune - mental!

Barak Argaman and Nadav Bonen moved in at about 2:45 am and started the set with their latest tune featuring Highguy Out Loud. Barak was behind the laptop and mixer while Nadav was moving between the korgs. X-noize are quite a new duo, they haven't been around for more than two years - but they've earned enormous popularity after their wicked remix of Psysex - Flip the Script and things were only getting busier since then... they then performed Flying Away, Red Handed, Galactica, their ground-breaking remix of Sub6 - Droid Who Saved da Queen, then slammed us with a couple of jaw-dropping unreleased gems that I couldn't ID. I thought of X-noize as a duo who's releases would be categorized as 'uplifting-psy'... their style isn't quite full-on, trippy, nor dark... They have truely brought a new sound to the psy scene which got a lot of psy ears wizzing for their tunes and gave their album Mental Notes the title of 'best breakthrough of 2005' in Isratrance forums. However, when seen live: those two can rip brains appart. It was mad and incredible for nothing you listen to at home or in a DJ set sounds the same in a live performance. It all gets twisted and remastered and even brought up to speed depending on the climate of the dancefloor... In that case: it was a catastrophic typhoon. X-noize played for one hour while I was flipping my brains out in the front row with a mainly japanese/israeli crowd in that part of the dancefloor. After finishing their set, thanking us, and cheering them on: Eskimo was about to finish setting up his laptop.

Junya (Eskimo) is a Swissman who released his debut album Can You Pick Me Up at the age of 17. His father, John, runs the psy labels Phantasm & Psychic Deli based in UK and Junya is just after releasing his new album Balloonatic Part 1 which I found as one of the best releases of 2005. However, and applying the performance concept, things was expected to be different. I was literally wrecked at that time of the night (4 am) and was starting to have thoughts of leaving (plus that I wasn't with any friends) but his intro changed it all.. it was such a nutcracker! I turned around and saw Junya buzzing like a friggin bee, he never stopped moving for a split of a second! Screaming, dancing, smiling, singing along with the tune, if the man could literally tear his shirt off he would have done it and I could easily picture flames blasting off his chest. Eskimo walked the thin line between psy and hardtrance blistering the set to up to 155 bpm. He was the most interacting performer of the night and the craziest behind the deck. I never saw an artist at such a state. He was then followed by Alien Project to close the night with an hour of a live performance, and 30 minutes of a DJ set, leaving up out of this world. The crowd was toasted... I remember an aurally wasted japanese head who couldn't move his ear away from the nearby speaker: he just stuck his ear to the speaker, shut his eye lids, and banged his head tro and fro screaming out loud. The dancefloor was flaming, the lights, the lazers, the rumbling earth: for a moment there, we almost saw the soundwaves bouncing off the walls and slamming back at the dancefloor wipping everybody of their feet. It was beyond description, beyond human understanding or tolerance. Just like an A-bomb going off in the centre of the dancefloor, sweeps everybody down, but then out of nowhere: they all rise again. After every breakdown, came an intense fast approaching explosion. After every build-up, came a tidal shock wave. After every down-tempo chunk a tune, our voices rose: come on! kick it back in!

Still buzzing... and will still be... and until the next psy event... when it'll all start again... once you're hit, there's no way back.

(sorry the review is late, but I've been in bed for two days - terribly ill)

[pTq]

salemtak ...
again the same comment i commented in your other review....

[Genesis]

what comment: me being a bitch? or u not reading the review?

[pTq]

LOL!!
both !!!!!!
im sure you had a blast and untill i go to an event just in a tiny bit similar to what you've been to , ill read both reviews

[DIONYSOS]

[Genesis]

next gig: April 1st - Infected Mushroom and Psycraft (confirmed so far)
(if i could sneak out from uni and forthcoming work)

WWWWEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA