Wednesday 20 July 2011

orbital - satan (live at irvine plaza, new york)

orbital has been an act that is a prolific live-act and with electronic music, especially the type that were really made in a studio, a live pa meant pre recorded music and some occasional own tinkering. this actually is true with orbital but what they did was what a lot of producers do nowadays with abelton, only with these big alesis mmt-8 sequencers, some other machines and a desk.

as far as i know they became a well known live act after bbc showing a bit from their performance at glastonbury in '94. what was memorable was their headbands that had some lights attached to them. it was actually just so they could see better in the dark but it's become one of the things associated with orbital. at last.fm the avatar for orbital is a two framed animation of the hartnoll brothers with these headbands.

now the live version of satan isn't really one that is much different from the album rendition since it plays much similar. there isn't any hilarious mashup moments like the infamous live rendition of halcyon+on+on where the hartnoll brothers chucks in bon jovi's "you give love a bad name" and belinda carlisle's "heaven is a place on earth" onto the track and make it work immensely.

however the thing i love the most is the intro because when the ominus pads are playing and everyone is just waiting for the butthole surfers sample to kick in you hear this one guy yelling "bring on the fucking bon jovi" and another guy chimes in with "yeah, bring it on". someone on youtube mentioned that "maybe they were from new jersey" which is funny and probably plausible. but yeah, other than that it's just "satan" but with live energy.

not to say that i don't think it's special since i think the live version really captures the tension and release through out the track and especially well with the last breakdown where the hartnoll brothers just comes in with everything for one final beat-assault.

buy here (7digital)

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