So last weekend I picked up tickets for the elder statesman of Trance – Paul Van Dyk – performing in Central Park, New York. Having been to larger outdoor events such as Homelands and Creamfields in the past, but knowing that was unlikely to happen here, I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
As it turned out, it was a fun afternoon/evening. Scheduled to start at 6, we turned up just in time to secure a spot on the grandstands towards the back of the “arena” (really an area half the size of a football field with various food & t-shirt stands around the edge and the stage on one side) and settled down for a long wait. I mean when was the last time you saw someone live who actually turned up on time? So I was kinda surprised when at 6:01 a tall skinny German guy walked onto stage (to a small cheer from those who were paying attention) and started his set. No fanfare, no intro, nothing. Just one guy, 2 powerbooks and a whole heap of amplification. It was still light at this point and it was a really nice atmosphere, not too packed, everyone just partying in the sun. Musically Paul was on better form than often when I’ve seen him live. I have to admit to not being the world’s biggest PvD fan. Whilst I like a lot of the stuff he remixes or puts out on Vandit, his own stuff (and often his sets) can sound somewhat bland to my ears. I wasn’t expecting him to start with the Chemical Brothers’ Galvanize that’s for sure. But he did, and the first 10 minutes were dominated by that cool “My finger is on the button” sample looped over whatever he was playing. There’s no doubt he had some fancy software running on those laptops because the mixing was not something you could do with regular kit, even with mp3s. My guess would be Ableton Live (as used by Sasha on Involver) but I heard he had a deal with Native Instruments and Stanton to use a modified Final Scratch. Whatever, it sounded pretty good, but I have to admit to being slightly sad to see the end of “real” DJing by the big names. I like to see the man-machine interaction in full flow, rather than the not so exciting view of a guy clicking a mouse on stage.
As the night wore on the sun set, and the lights came out. Nice show, but some lasers would have added something. The temperature cooled off and he turned up the pressure, with a very un-PvD like turn towards deep house & prog. My guess is that was a nod to the NYC crowd, who certainly seemed to lap it up. Suddenly the euro-centric club kid crowd morphed into a sweaty crush of muscle boys as seen at Trade or Twilo back in the day. We left a little before the end and walked back through the (largely deserted) park towards the west side. Was amazing hearing the beats echo through the trees as we approached reality…
Stay tuned for photos!
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.