One might hesitate to describe tonight’s goings on as a one way ticket to rock and roll oblivion, dear reader, but all of ten seconds of proceedings suggest the Acid House Apocalypse may be a distinct possibility. And death by Roland 303 has never seemed such a welcome proposition.
By way of introduction, Phuture spawned a sound and an ethos that shook the music world to its foundations at the time. In the late 1980s, Acid Tracks on the legendary Chicago label, Trax, took its roots from the nascent House scene in the Windy City….and then catapulted itself into a whole new sphere. The squelch of that Roland bassline machine being pulled in directions not even it’s makers thought possible. Or even desirable. And that sound still reverberates across many many genres today. And rattles through many eardrums tonight.
Of course, not content with that particular sonic blast, DJ Pierre – one third of Phuture – then went on to invent a whole new subsection of House with his myriad Wild Pitch records which found favour in the Garage clubs of New York….and all the way to Techno temples like Berghain in Berlin.
But tonight is all about the 303. The sound The Sun newspaper warned concerned parents, way back in 1988, would morph their children into frothing loons. Turns out they were right.
SWG3 were the hosts for this exquisite gig and was populated by a motley crew of young club kids and a sprinkling of the older generation. Lured out of retirement and disco dementia by the prospect of seeing the electronic equivalent of Jimi Hendrix, for the first time ever, in an appropriately warehouse-like space. Harking back to the early days of the fever that took a grip upon a generation and still holds sway today.
A crunching old school House set from Bosco warmed us up before giving way to all 9 minutes of the glorious 12 inch mix of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ‘Two Tribes’. An incredibly appropriate last record before our American guests took the stage. At the time, that throbbing behemoth sounded like it came from the future. And still does. But it was as nothing compared to what would occur when these strange imported slabs of vinyl started appearing from across the pond out of deepest Illinois and it’s near neighbour Detroit.
And here they were. Here they are. Right in front of your gallant reporter. Your reporter leaning urbanely against the bar, ready to scribble notes. Well that went out the window. Sweat, rump-shaking, massive grins…that was the order of the day. I was flying solo this evening but that didn’t matter. This wasn’t a night for detached admiration. That could come later. This was about dancing to the ouvre of some of electronic music’s greatest pioneers. Dancing with the band, not at them. For they looked like they were having as much fun as the bouncing crowd before them.
What followed was superb. A delirious romp through all the greats in their catalogue. ‘Acid Tracks’, ‘Slam’, the soul-inflected ‘We Are Phuture’, the socially concious ‘Rise From the Grave’, ‘Spank Spank’ – they were all here. And boy did the crowd love them. A gleeful throng delighting in the perfect marriage of true creative originality [a much over used word in sonic circles] and just a bloody good laugh. The least bonkers thing about the dance floor was a bicycle wheel appearing at one point. I think a camera may have been attached to it but who knows? The shaking of our collective money-makers was of more pressing concern.
This was utterly utterly vital music. Not a night for nostalgia. Although it no longer has the shock of the new – to quote Robert Hughes – it sounds as fresh as the day those kids in Chicago accidentally kick started a revolution. And with new music on the way….can they do it again?
The chatter from the promoters afterwards was that, in a club context, this was the best gig they had ever seen. And was it? It just might well have been….