Weekly > Reviews
Orbital - Leeds Academy
I’ve taken areal gamble tonight, i’m delving back into my youth and possibly risking wiping out some very happy memories from when I saw Orbital at their peak twice in 1995. You see as much as the tickets are free and all that so it’s not hard earned money i’m shelling out, I could have been seeing Jamie-T live at The Cockpit tonight who I do like, or I could have checked out Kap Bambino in Leeds as they are a band that i’ve got a taste for recently.
I haven’t though, like a good 1,900 other dance music fans with memories of their legendary live shows i’m here at the still impressive Academy which despite a rebranding (it’s now got O2 sponsorship behind it) hasn’t been spoilt, in fact if anything they seem to have cleaned up the floor a bit which was getting a ‘sticky’ reputation for itself.
On walking into the venue and the under populated room, I can’t quite make out who the support act is that’s on, it’s only when we enter the main room that we discover it’s Delphic, a band I have oceans of time for and see a big career ahead of them.
Tonight is a big step up from supporting Little Boots at The Cockpit where I saw them last time. With a dance crowd in attendance though and a huge sound system at the venue they seem realy in their element. We’d missed a fair bit of the set by the time we got in, but the last two tracks (including the single Counterpoint) sound brilliant in a big venue and that just reinforces my opinion that they are a band destined for large venues themselves in the not too distant future.
Orbital emerge shortly before 9pm and to see the brothers Hartnoll at work behind their huge bank of equipment with the same cool lights on the headset at play is a real trip down memory lane, as thankfully is the set list that we get tonight from a duo that have always known how to take a rock ethic in their live performance on stage and couple it with dance tracks (many of them anthems for people of my age) that get a now almost full crowd into a thronging mass.
- Orbital
- Leeds Academy (11th June 2009)
- Category: Live
- Label: Rhino Records
- Support: Delphic
- Reviewed by: Kev
- Published on: 16 Jun 2009
- Comments: 0
- Beat Surrender Rating:
Weblinks
Add to favouritesThey open with Lush, no new tracks to peddle like a lot of bands returning from a hiatus fall for (James / Wonderstuff I hope you are reading this), it sets the tone for what follows for the majority evening. Belfast and Chime still sound brilliant, as big as they are though it’s the dark techno thrash of Satan that really threatens to lift the roof off of the room.
The set doesn’t really drop at all, the only noticeable faux pas is the use of the Belinda Carlisle track Heaven Is A Place On Earth, i’d leave the mash ups to the 2 Many DJ lads if I were you boys. As you would expect if you’ve seen them live before then visuals play an important part of the set and that’s still the case tonight, while they rely on old tricks rather than anything new or inventive you can’t hold that against them.
A good night all round and while they don’t maybe have the same magic as they used to all those years ago, they can still cut it live and with a set list like that, you are gauranteed a good night…and I promise you one thing…it doesn’t matter how many years ago you last saw them, you’ll still want a pair of those headsets to wear round the house!
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