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Review: le petit Orb, 23/02-2006

Well prepared, means that i this time had the ticket before i went there, i picked up a colleague who i could convince to join me for this show as he would for sure miss something big out. Well, the orb is well known but it seems like as they couldnt name themselfs as the orb, most people didnt know that it was them.. so i was bit suprised that there werent so many people. I really expected that his night will be a crowded one.
We got there quite early (i think), as my workmate didnted wanted to stay so long cause of work the next day. So in the beginning, while Alex Paterson from the Orb had his DJ set - which was a very very good one and i can already say now that it was the highlight of the evening. It was really loud, i think too loud (but that was also cause we were sitting next to the speaker and trying to have a conversation.. stupid idea :) but the only available seats, so thats why) but he played a good mixture of minimal house tunes, click'n cutz, breakbeat and electronica. Got very suprised that he even played Beefcake! I simply love that track.. so both me and Jesper had a good time and a nice chat too.

After some time we decided to go up and shortly afterwards Thomas Fehlmann went on stage, who joined the orb, or at least "le petit orb". I have their latest Album, Okie Dokie It's The Orb On Kompakt, but not been listening to it yet. To take it right away, i was very dissapointed of Thomas's show.. not that there was no show but he played really just a regular nowadays house set and i just missed any kind of specialty in it. Generaly i have to point out that i am everything else then a fan of house music, only some minimal stuff i do like but 99% of the house stuff is just total crap. Hmm.. i might just think too much of the vocal house stuff and mainstream one, but i got fed up with it in my time back in Duesseldorf where they played nothing else then House in its variations and i just totally have the link to these posh people pretending to be cool. But back to Thomas Fehlmann and his set, as this has nothing to do with eachother cause fore sure his set was not commercial house music. But as Thomas is an old guy and having some main influence through being a member of Palais Schaumburg and within that a major player of the early Punk scene, i just expected more of him. I just got really bored of it, he build up these nice sounds in the start but then.. nothing happend with it.. so you had this expectations that his is a cool track now but it got quite boring after awhile as nothing else happend.

The orb, or le petit orb, had a fluent takeover as Dr. Paterson just joined Thomas Fehlmann on the stage. So we were not sure in the start what we have seen and if its still Thomas playing or already the Orb or what is going on here.. the only thing was that i heard the sound changing from the style. So that was the sign i guess. So as without any break inbetween the orb played, as boring was their show. Okay, i might be bit harsh here but again.. i just expected more. People were dancing but far from being enthusiastic about it i think. They were really experimental in the start with their sound and i guess that is the new album (as mentioned above). I missed some unique sounds here, dont know what i had expected also its some time ago i heard any orb stuff the last time, so it was just out of the remembrance that i expected something big to happen and thinking of that its not hard to be dissapointed. Guess its always a thing of big names and filling up to their standards.. true is also, the two guys are not the youngest anymore. This is not meant bad, but its has been some while ago since they had their glorious days.. and you could also feel that we werent at a normal rave event with youngsters :) i think the average age this evening was between 30 and 35.
So after listening for sometime, Jesper decided to go home (around 2) which i could totally understand but i felt like giving them more time so i stayed another hour. Which i dont know if i got the big profit out of it as i got sooo tired around 3, having very hard time to keep my eyes open and therefor decided to bike home. So went to bed around 3:30 or something like that. No need to say that the next day at work was pretty exhausting, but i managed it quite well i think.

So this wasnt a bad night at all, even if it sounds like it, i just hoped for more. I dont know what more, but it didnt lived up to my expectations. Still, doenst mean that it was bad, and for sure i enjoyed Alex Patersons Dj-set a lot in the start of the night.

posted by Christian @ 14:37