Journeys By Intergalactic Party Seekers

Went to see Coldcut last night at the Corn Exchange. They were as entertaining and tight as you'd expect a band at the top of their game to be. The styles ranged from trip hop to hip hop, house to D&B, garage to bollywood stylee ragga! (featuring the inimitable Roots Manuva). The two Coldcut dudes performed behind a myriad of screens and computers with two visual artists and alongside a few guest vocalists.

The visuals at Coldcut gigs (and many other acts on Ninja Tune) are always pretty amazing, too. I've heard some people complain that VJing never really took off and became what it promised to be, but I'd argue that, while it took some time to get there, the modern capabilities of live audiovisual crossover technology are quite incredible. For instance, we were presented with good ol' Tony Blair in parliament during Coldcuts D&B political statement, 'Re:volution'. As well as his voice being scratched to shit with the according scratchy noises you'd expect, the accompanying visual was glitching and jumping back and forth in perfect synch. No more of the clunky, out of time synchronisations that VJing was hindered by a few years back.

The gig started with a visual of the solar system, the 'camera' whizzing past the huge outer planets via little moons and through the rings of Saturn. As it approached Earth, the view switched to the new Google world map device, which allows you to zoom in on any part of the planet. So there was Earth, and the camera honed in on the Northern hemisphere, then Europe, then the UK, and then Brighton. As it closed in on Brighton, the view changed from relatively indistinct topography to a birds eye, photographic town plan. It continued to zoom in - there was the beach, there was the pier, and there was the Corn Exchange! By this time the crowd were cheering in the way crowds have always cheered when their beloved home town and venue is namechecked at a gig. Maintaining the modern take on this old staple, the camera whizzed straight in to the domed roof of the Corn Exchange and suddenly the view changed to that of the audience! Coldcut had a camera trained on us and the preceeding sequence had been as if our little party had been selected and pinpointed from the outer reaches of the solar system. Fantastic!