Although this night was listed as happening at the Albert Hall, it actually happened in the loading bay/basement, which really makes a lot more sense considering the scale and format of the event. It would be cool to fill the main hall with weird electronic beeps and basslines, but perhaps this will have to wait until the distant future when robots rule the Earth. Or something.
Anyway, I'm all for raving in semi-industrial settings, and I prefer my music served at minus temperatures, so for me, the loading bay of the Royal Albert Hall was the perfect gig venue.
Soundclash was certainly an accurate description of the mix of acts performing; King Cannibal kicked things off with his standard furious D&B/dubstep mix, which was followed by Mira Calix's more chilled out bleeps. While both styles might not seem to compliment each other, they actually worked very well together. Following on from Mira Calix was DJ Food's Strictly Kev, who I fucking love and never fails entertain.
Next up was Chris Clark, and bloody hell, he just keeps getting better and better. There seemed to be some hardcore Clark fans up front, or perhaps they were just drunk, and unfortunately his set was over all too quickly.
The Bug (feat. Flow Dan and Daddy Freddy) were the only artists on the bill that we hadn't seen before, so we didn't really know what to expect. Their proper noisy dancehall/dub stuff was actually fantastic, although I must be getting old, because my ears were fucking bleeding afterwards.
Finishing off the night was Plaid, who I've found in the past to be a little hit and miss. Seems to depend on whether you're there for a rave or a music performance, but their closing set completely smashed it.
All in all, a fantastic evening. Kick arse visuals and fantastic music. It's gonna be hard to go back to listening to regular two dimensional music after hearing this 3D stuff. At times we were literally being bombarded from all sides by different sections of music, and I'm sure at one point it was circling the room. Crazy.
But nice.
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