It must be noted that it took massive balls to consider what they were going to do - let alone pulling it off. I will get a criticism out of the way before I get to the praise. There was too much time spent on the mic. It felt to me like they wanted to hype the crowd as much as possible, and the tempo of many songs may have been too slow to make that happen given that everyone there had been going at it for at least three days already. I think this set would have gone over really, really well in an early evening slot (think: Theorem the first year), but I understand this was a deserved spot for people that have contributed so much to the Detroit scene. I'm not complaining that the music was slow to close things out b/c it was really beautiful and meaningful. I guess what I'm saying is that if the crowd seemed disinterested, it probably said more about the collective exhaustion of the audience than the collective enjoyment, and time spent hyping the crowd on the mics seemed like more of a distraction than an effective way to motivate people. But you could say this about the main stage on the whole, not just this show. All-told, that's a pretty minor criticism.
To the set itself: The intro was really nice. About 5 minutes of lush pads and Detroit moods. Really pretty stuff. More-or-less seemlessly, this segued into "Strings". I hope this comes out as a release somewhere, b/c it was the hilight of the set for me. Really well executed on the live keys and a great twist to a classic that many people think should never be touched. "Trans Europe Express" and "Home Computer" were excellent too. From then-on-in, most of the music was relatively slow with varying prominance of beats. I didn't know a few of the tracks, but I'd love to hear the originals now. This set was all about the beauty of funk and electronics, and I must repeat, it was extremely impressive to hear these "techno standards" covered so well with three live keyboards and various guests. Aux Men get huge credit for pulling this off. I hope this comes to a city near me so I can see it with a little more energy. I have to guiltily admit I left for 15 minutes in the middle to check out Derek Plaslaiko b/c I needed some tempo to re-energize me, but I don't think that would be the case had I not been on my feet, checking about 60 hours of music in the previous four days. It's also really impressive to see this SOS agenda come to a head so quickly. Well done! Tristan ------------------- http://www.mp313.com <- Music http://www.metrotechno.net <- DC techno + more http://www.metatrackstudios.com <- DC DJ/Production studios http://phonopsia.tripod.com <- Hub [EMAIL PROTECTED] <- email --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
