Christope De Babylon begins with a drone and brings in shards of distorted
breakbeat and the occasional weird acid noise. It all gets chopped up a lot
by Christope who appears to be mixing / Djing with a minimal yet warped
reference to dance music.
The lights come up between bands and the same country blues background music
comes in that started the evening - is John Peel, the host and mentor behind
this event responsible? He announces Schiuzo - giving us the approved
pronunciation (somewhat different to the announcement over the tannoy) then
a strange Junglist, distorted noise complete with feedback M.C ing takes us
into the realms of performance art complete with regular shouts of 'Schiuzo'
that leave us in no doubt as to who we are watching. This is perhaps part of
what John Peel later calls 'Digital Hardcore Recordings ruthless marketing
methods'. The two women in Schiuzo take it in turns to do things - sing a
bit, do a spoken word bit, scratch records before leaving the stage. An
encore is requested and we get 'no more songs, just noise' as Mr Schiuzo
treats us to a squealing, massively overdriven tone for a few minutes to
which people down the front pogo even though there are no beats. Good Fun.
Atari Teenage Riot follow the interval with a full on assault on the ears
complete with voodoo facepaint which is pretty theatrical compared to the
anti-performance of the previous 'entertainers'. Music is mutating and
taking us with it. ATR slogans are repeated until they become chant like,
and thrash metal riffs collide with accelerated break beats. At the 'Start
the Riot' point in the evening about 100 people spontaneously invade the
stage and start moshing. This noise trip makes you want to get on and do
something purposeful, which is in itself a good thing - you may feel wound
up, but something has been communicated via performance.
ATR project an articulate noise, and make you feel as if the music and
lyrics - even though you can hardly make sense of the words are addressing
you personally. During an open mike session a guy runs on stage and shouts
'we love you, we love you - ad infinitum' until Alec Empire responds 'we
love you too'. It brings the cyberpunk fantasy back down to Earth. Alec
doesn't DJ as quite a few people had probably hoped for. He runs back on
stage at the end and shakes hands with people - very rock n roll... but
warped into something more interesting.
Avant garde techno
terrorism slowly begins to make sense in the plush theatre style surroundings
of the Royal Festival Hall. The formality of the arts centre contrasts completely
with the intensity of tonight's' music, but with the added dimension that
we are here to see a piece of 'performance' rather than revel in the noisy
moshpit of 'ravepunk'.