Daft Punk tries to answer that age old question: what do you do with a drunken sailor? No, wait, that’s not it. No, they try to answer that conundrum, how do you make two guys playing with synthesizers interesting? The answer: with lots of lights and videos.
Let’s rewind a bit. Daft Punk, a French synthesizer band, played the Berkeley Greek Theater last Friday. I went with a small contingent of friends. First, I stopped off at Henry’s Publick House and Grille. Notice the old tyme spelling. Henry’s was packed with Cal students getting their gills greased. The Guinness pint I ordered came in an American pint glass instead of an English pint glass. The difference is about three ounces. The waitress sheepishly apologized. Publick house of lies is more like it.
The opening band was The Rapture. They were energetic and multi-instrumentalist. They would flit between bass, guitars, keyboards, turntables, and drums. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but they were a great band. They deserved a dark club instead of the fading sunset.
When The Rapture finished their set, the curtains stayed closed for a half hour. Someone (or thing) was spinning records. I assumed Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (this guy has two hyphens in his name!) and Thomas Bangalter were backstage having their pâté and Château neuf de Pape, waiting for darkness to fall.
Daft Punk’s music is abrasive. They especially like a hard shriek of a synthesizer. They also favor repetitive vocal lines, which is commonplace in dance music. Their theme is the love affair/battle between technology and humanity. They’ve had a huge following in Europe for more than a decade. They sold out the Greek, so they are building a following here.
I danced on the cement steps to the right of the band for a while, but went to the top of the amphitheater to get direct view. Daft Punk has an advanced light show, probably the most intricate and expensive since Pink Floyd’s heyday. They stand and toggle switches in a pyramid that has light patterns and videos that play off of it. A grid stands on both sides of the pyramid that lights up in different colors. And behind them is a giant screen. Their robot suits also are lined with lights. Taken as whole, the show is breathtaking. I’m happy I am not asthmatic.
At first I was standoff-ish. Where the warmth, I thought? Where’s the interaction? A friend pointed out, they could be paying their bills online for all we knew. I mean they were bent over looking at electronic stuff while the light show raged. Who knew if they were playing music or just hamming it up to a recording?
But this is just another show and the show was fantastique. They played their hits. The crowd loved them and danced their ass off. Even if the most cynical guess was correct, it didn’t matter because in a word they were fun. Robotic fun but fun nonetheless.
After the show, I ended up driving a behemoth Suburban with a raucous crowd in the back. If you want to test your Zen, try driving an enormous SUV with a bunch of drunken sailors. We turned the apartment into a dance party. At one point I languidly laid on the couch while watching young things dance. I might as well been wearing a toga and eating grapes while watching slaves dance.
I didn’t get much sleep that night. It was good but it was wrong. But the memory will be of the fun and not of the wreck I was the next day.
Let’s rewind a bit. Daft Punk, a French synthesizer band, played the Berkeley Greek Theater last Friday. I went with a small contingent of friends. First, I stopped off at Henry’s Publick House and Grille. Notice the old tyme spelling. Henry’s was packed with Cal students getting their gills greased. The Guinness pint I ordered came in an American pint glass instead of an English pint glass. The difference is about three ounces. The waitress sheepishly apologized. Publick house of lies is more like it.
The opening band was The Rapture. They were energetic and multi-instrumentalist. They would flit between bass, guitars, keyboards, turntables, and drums. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but they were a great band. They deserved a dark club instead of the fading sunset.
When The Rapture finished their set, the curtains stayed closed for a half hour. Someone (or thing) was spinning records. I assumed Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (this guy has two hyphens in his name!) and Thomas Bangalter were backstage having their pâté and Château neuf de Pape, waiting for darkness to fall.
Daft Punk’s music is abrasive. They especially like a hard shriek of a synthesizer. They also favor repetitive vocal lines, which is commonplace in dance music. Their theme is the love affair/battle between technology and humanity. They’ve had a huge following in Europe for more than a decade. They sold out the Greek, so they are building a following here.
I danced on the cement steps to the right of the band for a while, but went to the top of the amphitheater to get direct view. Daft Punk has an advanced light show, probably the most intricate and expensive since Pink Floyd’s heyday. They stand and toggle switches in a pyramid that has light patterns and videos that play off of it. A grid stands on both sides of the pyramid that lights up in different colors. And behind them is a giant screen. Their robot suits also are lined with lights. Taken as whole, the show is breathtaking. I’m happy I am not asthmatic.
At first I was standoff-ish. Where the warmth, I thought? Where’s the interaction? A friend pointed out, they could be paying their bills online for all we knew. I mean they were bent over looking at electronic stuff while the light show raged. Who knew if they were playing music or just hamming it up to a recording?
But this is just another show and the show was fantastique. They played their hits. The crowd loved them and danced their ass off. Even if the most cynical guess was correct, it didn’t matter because in a word they were fun. Robotic fun but fun nonetheless.
After the show, I ended up driving a behemoth Suburban with a raucous crowd in the back. If you want to test your Zen, try driving an enormous SUV with a bunch of drunken sailors. We turned the apartment into a dance party. At one point I languidly laid on the couch while watching young things dance. I might as well been wearing a toga and eating grapes while watching slaves dance.
I didn’t get much sleep that night. It was good but it was wrong. But the memory will be of the fun and not of the wreck I was the next day.
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