- Welcome to corporate raving.
Wire is the brainchild of Japanese techno giant Takkyu Ishino, who was inspired by Germany’s Mayday party. Now in its seventh year, Wire is far and away Japan’s biggest techno festival with this year seeing 25 acts and some 15000 ravers converging on the massive Yokohama Arena.
Needless to say, such a large event takes a serious amount of planning and backing and the corporate sponsorship was obvious the moment you stepped into the main dance arena. Able to hold at least 10000 party-goers at any one time, it was lit up with an incredible lighting and laser display that was staggering in its intricacy; book-ended by two stages standing at either end of the arena: the live stage and the DJ stage.
As soon as each DJ finished their set the lights went down on the DJ stage while the lights came up on the opposing Live stage. Run with clockwork, military precision everything went off at Wire without a hitch. Perfect.
Perhaps, a little too perfect.
Wire is a slick corporate operation; from the incredible spectacle of the laser lights to the merchandise displays to the corporate banners to the carefully subdivided dance areas on the main floor; everything is in its right place and nothing is left to chance. As a consequence it’s hard to get close to anything; a feeling exacerbated by the enormous main dance area, where everything is literally experienced at a distance, leading to slight feelings of alienation.
This is not the event to feel a close personal connection to the crowd, the music or the DJ. Wire is pure techno spectacle.
When faced with such an enormous crowd the temptation to bang out an hour of stadium techno must be incredible. Some artists resisted the urge, most notably Ellen Allien and (somewhat surprisingly) DJ Hell. Ellen played a set of carefully nuanced techno and, despite a couple of moments of less than stellar mixing, further cemented her reputation as a DJ who always tries to do something interesting, engaging both your head and your feet at the same time.
DJ Hell, who has been known to bash out unrelenting sets at previous Wires, came up with a set liberally spiced with electro, the sound of grinding ‘80s synths filling the stadium. It’s what he does best, and it was a joy to see him bring this sound back to Wire.
Other artists dived right into sets of slamming techno, with varying degrees of success. Joey Beltram’s live set demonstrated his mastery of the form while Bad Boy Bill’s set seemed to border on deliberate self-parody (who else drops their very own theme song towards the end of the set?). Luke Slater (playing at the crucial time of 3:30 on the main dance floor) came up with a sadly uninspiring hour of techno, Kagami launched into some diva-techno that sounded frightening, and 808 State seemed to think they were playing a rock gig at Wembley Stadium.
The absence of Jeff Mills, who had become something of a fixture playing the last four Wires, was keenly noted leaving Chris Liebing, another Wire regular, to play the final headlining slot of the evening. Chris stepped up to the plate with a solid slamming set, even starting things off with some Detroit sounds. Still, filling the shoes of Jeff Mills is not an easy feat.
For those somewhat intimidated and alienated by the main dance floor with its 10000 strong crowd, the much smaller side area offered a more intimate, club-like experience. Perhaps freed from the temptation to slam out stadium techno, many artists in the side area played more interesting sets that were nonetheless still crowd pleasers.
Fumiya Tanaka proved yet again that he’s Japan’s best minimal DJ, while The Modernist played a beautiful yet driving live set of chiming techno. Reinhard Voigt and Secret Cinema both went for pumping sets of four to the floor techno. The stand out set of the side area, however, most definitely belonged to New York’s Abe Duque. Abe played a fantastic 100-minute set that encompassed minimal house, techno, Chicago sounds, and acid. It was during this set that Wire came closest to a frantic club experience where the crowd, the DJ, and the music are as one.
It’s worth remembering, though, that despite these excellent (and some less than excellent) sets, Wire can’t take chances. It can’t afford to. In order to be successful, to cover costs, and be somewhat corporate friendly, Wire can’t be too underground; it has to be fairly “mainstream” as far as techno goes. Ishino is forced to walk a fine line, slipping lesser known acts in between such big established names as Luke Slater, Westbam, Joey Beltram, and himself. In other words, Wire needs to think corporate.
Of course, this does not make Wire a bad festival. Not at all. It’s one of the slickest, best-organized techno spectacles you could ever go to. And some excellent acts are guaranteed to be on the bill every single year. Just remember, it’s corporate raving at its finest; it’s so slick that sometimes you might just slide right off the surface…