- If you were in Prague on a recent Saturday and even remotely interested in the history of dance music, then the name Laurent Garnier probably appeared somewhere in your evening plans. That is if you had some cash to spare. Making the rounds in support of his upcoming album Tales of a Kleptomaniac, the energetic Frenchman swung through Prague for two gigs at two venues for the price of, well, two. Anyone hoping to attend both the early live show and the late-night DJ set was looking at a hefty price tag (in the vicinity of Kč 1200 or € 44), but hey, the guy's a legend, right?
Most of the packed crowd at Palác Akropolis seemed to think so, as they rapturously greeted Garnier and crew to the stage for the early set, despite the typically un-party hour of eight 'o clock. True to its word, this was an actual live show. Of course there were a slew of laptops, controllers and effects on stage—primarily manned by Garnier—but there were also horns, guitar and keyboard. For the most part, the set-up worked surprisingly well. Garnier was in full-on bandleader mode—dancing around stage only to run back to his mixer and slam in the bass, wildly giving hand signals to the horn section, shouting sarcastic discouragement to his soloists ("You're shit! Play the motherfucking blues!"), but the band seemed to be grooving just as hard as him.
Photo credit: Petr Klapper
In typical Garnier fashion, eclecticism was the name of the game. The two-hour set worked its way through techno, acid, dubstep, drum & bass, future jazz, Latin and funk, and included Garnier classics both new ("Gnanmankoudji") and old ("Acid Eiffel"). It was a fantastic way to preview unreleased material from the new album, but these tracks beg to be heard on a powerful club system, not in a rock theater, and moreover, they beg to be mixed, to complement and be complemented by other tracks before and after them.
Flash forward four hours and a few stops on the metro, and that's exactly what the rammed-up crowd at The Roxy got. In appearance, Garnier as DJ and Garnier as bandleader aren't too different. In both settings, he's wonderfully charismatic and his EQ'ing seems to constantly be pushing him toward some type of celestial, sonic orgasm. That being said, earlier in the night, Garnier seemed to be playing bandleader, playing with the idea of being a bandleader. As a DJ, he seemed right at home.
Photo credit: Petr Klapper
Following a long trancey intro and a few less than perfect transitions, Garnier really hit his stride as he moved away from progressive house's overkill build-ups and settled into some finely paced tech-house. The set worked best however when he started to get playful, dropping classics like Royal House's "Can You Party" and segueing Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel Mighty Real" into his own "Man with a Red Face." The crowd went bonkers and then went bonkers some more. Did he challenge them? Probably not. Did he take them on a journey? Maybe. Was the floor packed with sweaty revelers until the wee hours of Sunday morning? Most definitely.