When the echoing 'Born Slippy' starts in a classic film Train spotting the four main characters, pale from addiction, run through the streets of Glasgow. It's the mid-nineties, rave is at its peak in post-Berlin Wall Europe. Old factories, abandoned printers and empty warehouses are the ruins of an industrial past and the raw backdrop of new music.
Underworld, the popular British dance duo from Cardiff, Wales, provided its soundtrack at that time. Thirty years later, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith perform at the Gashouder four nights in a row because a new album is coming. By popular demand – the two announced shows were soon doubled.
While the show had some start-up problems on Wednesday evening, with poor and too soft sound, this was resolved on Thursday. In fact, the music is deafeningly loud at times. The Gashouder in Amsterdam's Westerpark is notoriously difficult to tune to dance music – its impressive size and round shape make it a shrill sound box. Sound-wise, the maximum seems to have been achieved from the building tonight.
Distorted images
Hyde and Smith stand alone on stage, in front of a fence with LED screens full of distorted black and white images behind it. During the few moments that they look at each other, they smile blissfully and place a hand on each other's back. It is an intriguing duo: Smith stands in front of his impressive computer all evening as the captain of a UFO, and Hyde as the eccentric cult leader who dances dreamily on a platform and transports the audience to the underworld. Well, like a sixty-year-old: too much shoulder and knee, not enough hip.
Halfway through, as befits people in their sixties, a break is taken. As a result, the atmosphere deteriorates somewhat; the room felt like it was just getting started. But admittedly, they play for a long time – almost three hours including intermission. And that means four evenings in a row. The music helps keep the energy up. He jumps in all directions, and often from one heel to another. We blast from the minimalist 'Border Country' to the progressive (wonderful) nineties anthem 'Dark & Long' (also from Train spotting), to the hard techno of 'Push Upstairs'.
The audience doesn't really care and breaks up as much as the music. The question arises whether it is a company drink or a dark techno evening. For example, sweaty, shirtless teenagers stand next to gray pigeons who try to film, but forget to press the record button. There are also a striking number of parents with adult children. During the euphoria of 'Born Slippy' they all jump together.
#nineties #life #Underworld #Gashouder