Gig report
GLAS ~ May bank holiday special
Yes indeed, the dates are right! Spectrum finished at 6am, take down, packed and leaving London around quarter past eight and straight back to Birmingham for a ten o clock setup for GLAS. Now if you’ve never been to a GLAS party, you have to make one. The production these guys put into each of their events is something else and the crowd KNOW how to party!
Due to an unforeseen twist of fate, we ended up mapping a white shed and as we had a van full of pyramids decided the boring old flat screen surround wouldn’t cut it. So up went a few more and Liam took on the task of mapping and playing right the way through to midnight on zero sleep!
Spectrum ~ Saturday 5th May
CHASE & STATUS (DJ SET) & RAGE
SUB FOCUS (DJ SET) & MC ID
REDLIGHT
DISCLOSURE LIVE
BREACH (Ben Westbeech)
CHASING SHADOWS PRES: KILLSONIK
UNTOLD
MAJOR LOOK
ZOMBIE KIDS (MADRID)
PETE JORDAN
Visuals by BLEND
Oh my fucking lord! What a night! and what a start to an insane bank holiday weekend! I fear there may be an exclamation mark overload coming up!
Curve balls aside, and with great help from HX2′s very own Craig Hinchcliffe (if you’ve never heard of the almighty Free Control keep your eyes and ears posted) for the van hire, Blend hit the road hard and headed down Sout’ for the latest installment with Pete Jordan and Spectrum.
For this install we went back to the old school of wood n nails (as Keith (UTC)) so delicately put it, and brought out our mapping system from December. The air was without a doubt blue at various points throughout the install, and with promoters looking on worriedly, and MASSIVE assistance from (you may notice a theme here) Milliebeanz & coming out of visual semi retirement VJ Silence we got the install completed and mapped with two minutes to doors.
Panicked? Yeah, but the extra pressure helped and Blends resolve shone through.
The show? It seriously fucking rocked!!! From Pete’s opening set, covering a majority of his bangers (check out http://soundcloud.com/petejordan) through to phenomenal sets from Sub Focus and Chase & Status, the main room was heaving from the outset!
The night ended on a high note courtesy of the Madrid collective known as Zombie Kids and a fitting If brief eulogy to Betie Boys Adam MCA and “Fight for the right to party”.
Visually? I’m still buzzing about this event, from the setup shenanigans right through to the exhausting, yet quicker take down. This is worth the time, effort, install and driving distance it took.
Love Spectrum, love LWE, #lovemywork
Tony
UTC at the Birmingham showcase
HUGE PROPS to Milliebeanz once again for her support and help throughout the UTC showcase on the street!
FACE / UTC as part of the showcase festival
Friday night. The start of an insane bank holiday weekend. It had a been a bit quiet on the event front for ourselves, but that didn’t mean things were any easier in the background. Firstly, we’d purchased a shed load of kit for Project “flu~id”. And height restrictions aside, built the first incarnation of it for the Face side of the event.
Absolutly HUGE thanks to Milliebeanz for covering the UTC tent at the same gig. Also HUGE thanks have to go to Liam for covering the mapping whilst I got my head down in the back of the car for three hours (it’s amazing how easily 30 minutes can stretch when your visiting the land of nod).
There have been a few posts regarding flu~id over the last months and it’s incredibly exciting to actually have the structure cut to size and actually delivered. By our current designs, we should be able to video map an entire stage area of (approx) 30′ x 20′ solidly as a self supporting three dimensional structure! Happy days and many more weeks of design and planning ahead.
Flexibility, uniqueness and something else. The tag line is to follow.
TC
UTC Pyramid mapping
Our fourth serious mapping attempt, and we like to think that it’s been a continual improvement each and every time.
Pyramid Mapping
In association with UTC
Filmed at Under The Counter feat Om Unit, Kromestar, Jon 1st, Germ 2, Heelix The Space Cat
A bit more of a serious outing into mapping than previous projects with a large wooden structure providing the canvas. Visuals fed from modul8 to madmapper via syphon with a little trick to enable muting parts of the mapping with a sequencer even when mirroring the same content on each pyramid; all synced to a master bpm.
Date:17.12.11
Venue: Hare and Hounds, Birmingham
Special Thanks:
Keithy G / Frank the Chippy / The Hare and Hounds
Music: Volt (kidkanevil Remix) – Taprikk Sweezee
Music Is My Method – Nottingham
A MASSIVE night in Nottingham of recent, led to a broken down vehicle and a bit of a panic loading the monitors in and out of the replacement van. tbc.
Regular updates ahoy!
It’s been way too long since our last gig related update, and with that in mind we (Liam & I) will be posting regular updates on this site as well as the ever present Facebook & Twitter feeds. What has been happening then over the intervening months however has been more and more gigging in the London area, plenty of workshops are on the horizon for the New Year (Corby & Nottingham) as well as inroads on the “Fluid” system and something a little bit special in conjunction with an established brand and DJ. Happy times ahead indeed.
It’s all gone a bit mental!
With ninety minutes left to go for tonight’s Psy trance extravaganza, it’s been one he’ll of a week. Since the finish of the VJ workshops in Corby, there has been a shedload of prep work with both Lisa and Chris of the Core. Tech rehearsal ended on a high note Thursday night, with nothing remaining but the final Slam event today (Friday 8th). A half four start saw a complete run through of the show, complete with last minute requests for visuals where none previously existed (such is the VJ life). Massive congratulations and thanks have to go to the VJ’s from the workshops for all their hardwork and support, especially Callum for helping in setup as well as all the performers (Andy, Cindy as well as the star pupils VJ’s Skull and Monkey).
The event ran smoothly from our perspective and overall it was a huge success for the Core. Here is looking to the next time guys :)
Whilst this was happening in Corby, Liam was braving a slow train to London to setup and get the show started at Proud2 for the psy trance event Halcyon. A two hour drive down the M11 (for some reason) and at around midnight I (Tony) join Liam for the festivities.
With Infected Mushroom performing a full band set to be followed immediately by Tristan (and a very smilie fellow he is too). I’ve always been a great supporter of visuals and the artists who create all the lovely content I use and I have to say, Mr Lucidhouse sir, all of your work is absolutely sublime with Psytrance \o/.
The rest of tonight (and it’s still not over!) has gone past in a blur of smoke. With this much in here at the moment it’s a complete waste of a good projector on the main wall. However it’s now into the final twenty minutes and all that remains is to pack down and make a gentle two hour drive back up North to prepare for events at both the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath and our residency at the HMV Institute with Mark Ronson and Jaguar Skills once again :)
A Belated update …
Phew! It’s a bit of a belated post but a major one at that. Yes indeed, since our previous update about the monster weekend, it has come to pass and already we’ve seen a more sedate one come to an end. It all started on the Friday with a bit of a mammoth four hour drive from Leicester to Birmingham and finally to London at the O2 arena for Spectrum presents the Stanton Warriors album launch. A quick and calm setup, some grub and it was straight onto it for Santero, Pete Jordan, Zane Lowe, The Stanton Warriors, Boregore and Joker.
Slamboree
Friday, March the 18th saw a brand new event take it’s first tentative steps into the big wide world. Slamboree, the twisted carnival brainchild of Mike Freear of Alphadrive fame, Stirling Freeman (live circus / band) along with Marc Reck (Mr Elephant / DJ Narrative) saw a multitude of artists, circus performers, DJ’s, percussionist’s and Blend come together from all over the UK for a mind melting 45 minute set of fire, light, brass, bongo’s, choons and live music. theLABvisuals had previously VJ’d to Alphadrive at Mr Elephants 2nd birthday bash at the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath, whilst working alongside Blendstate visuals for the VJ workshops throughout the day.
SLAMBOREE is a brand new LIVE next-level dance music circus band mashing up underground bass-driven beats with live orchestra, guitars, drums, loops, visuals, pyrotechnics and circus!!!!! NOT to be missed (or tried at home). Stomping through breakbeat, dubstep, drum & bass, dub and electro, whilst throwing in balkan, gypsy vibes for good measure.
Featuring Freear (Alphadrive), Marc Reck (Dj Narrative), Stirling, missKittyflip (R:evolve), The Now Here Nowhere Circus, Blend AV & special guests including Robinson Boone (Deathretro) & members of Dexter Dextrous and the Fingersmiths
www.facebook.com/slamboree
Blend’s involvement with Slamboree began on the 20th of January after a gracious introduction from Marc Reck, and whilst we were juggling forthcoming events and live performance we were shoehorning in enough time to develop the visuals for the show. Mike Freear & Marc Reck created a superb musical score from scratch for the show which also infused Marc’s love of a good story (more on DJ Narrative to come) along with poignant samples to tell the tale as the night progressed. Visually, these samples became Blend’s individual cue points for each track’s visual theme, covering everything from Mr T’s fear of flying to crazed gipsy dancing!
Aside from a gruelling four and a half hour drive up North (courtesy of the M6) the setup into the house projector was painless. The biggest concern was MacOS’s newest feature of overwriting a gig of data and destroying all my video loops! Huge thanks have to got to Paul for finding his PC operating skills once again and bring up to me a DVD of all the missing data (lifesaver!). Yes indeed, with an hour or so to go before showtime, it was chowtime. And what can you say except WOW! We were all treated to a good vegetable curry courtesy of the hosts for the evening (if only all promoters and venue owners were so gracious!). Throughout this, Liam was busy converting the missing loops to a usable format as well as loading them onto my video hardware, so time was swapped and as I started to frantically go about organising the footage on the P-10′s, Liam took a well earned break and grabbed some grub.
‘It’s showtime!’
Now, I’d been listening to the set from the early days of inception, and felt reasonably confident that I’d be able to drop the Mr T and Barstow clips manually, in time with the samples that Marc would be triggering. Overall, I reckon (in my humble opinion) they were pretty much on the nail and only took the minutest of tweaking to get right. But then again, it’s different when you put yourself under that much pressure and I’m pleased to say that I wasn’t embarrassed by the outcome. The visuals worked, the live musicians added a hereto unheard depth to the tracks, the circus performers were superb and I think the only thing that was missing from the whole spectacle were a few pyrotechnics (although I will not be offering my services on this front after an incident quiet a few years earlier!). Outside of that, what a show! Everything came together amazingly and I’m pretty certain that all involved can do nothing else except congratulate Mike & Marc on a great concept and an even better realisation!
Here is looking forwards to the next outing for Slamboree!
Tony (typed not dictated, 22nd March 2011).
The complete line up for the first Slamboree event are:
Visuals: Blend
Synth, loops, guitar: Freear
Scratches, synths and beats: Marc Reck
Vocals: Cova Stirling
Violin: missKittylip
Sax: Jamie Orde Metherell
Trombone: Joe Rogers
Trumpet: Philip Basil Unciano
Accordian: Claudio
Drums: Paul DrumsAnd the Now Here Nowhere Circus:
Ashley Ferrari
Alexandra Lexisexx Lee
Jake Williams
Delia Ceruti
Gail O’Brien
Hope we got everyone here, and of course a HUGE thanks to you should you have come along for the first outing :) \o/