John Digweed in Seattle

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    Jan 11, 2010
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  • How was it that John Digweed was playing in the main room at Trinity on New Year's Day in Seattle? Who knows, but if you had any woodwork to crawl out of, this was the time to get those etched legs moving. Opener Jason LeMaitre was trying to take it easy, but call it love, fate, or Seattle's ADD impatience for the harder faster part of the night, it was still early when he started bumping a few "hey, settle down there, tiger" tracks, even though he relaxed it a bit in advance of Chloe Harris. Hers was an exercise in techno propriety, setting the perfect mood for the time of night, playing tracks you've never heard before and may never again, threading thoughtful basslines and crazy atmospheric textures through music that was very danceable but not over the top. (There's a reason Digweed picked her to be an opener on some of his previous tours—she understands the balance of an evening, but has enough tricks up her sleeve to keep a crowd captive and on its toes.) Right around midnight, two white tuxedos escorted John Digweed into the main room, and up to the booth he went, the Friday night crowd cheering for one of the most distinguished artists in dance music history. How many of our lives changed the first time (or the hundredth time) we listened to the green Global Underground Sydney CD? How many times have we felt the nervous jitters when we found about a Sasha & Digweed tour coming up? Chloe finished her set, passed the audio torch to him, and—meh. Photo credit: Tim Wilson It was OK. It sounded like what John Digweed was supposed to play on a Friday night for a club crowd. Sort of all over the board, technically impeccable but a bit soulless. A little more house flavor here, a little more proggish feel there. The dance floor was into it. But it could have been any dance floor, anywhere, with any DJ really. Nothing stood out. Nothing hit home. And then, at 1:50, he switched into a completely different gear. Who knows how he did it or why he waited until then, but in an instant, the energy of the room switched from generic to fully-charged madness. Suddenly, people weren't into the music because they were supposed to be into it—they were into it because one of the best DJ's in the world was going to lead them on a little journey. Goodbye, milk and toast; hello dark, dirty, pounding, tribal, fearless techno. We had been lulled into a state of LaLa, and then the ghost of electronic future came tearing into the room with a chainsaw and a needle gun. By two o'clock, quite a few people had left, but everyone who stayed was treated to an hour-and-a-half of the best music I have ever heard from Digweed. I spent most of that time in the middle of the dance floor, jumping around with the rest of the crazies, many of who, I imagine, were feeling the same nostalgia ... the feeling of family and connectedness that the late '90s, early '00s US rave scene was built upon—when candy kids were the rule instead of the frowned-upon exception. It was a chance to remember our roots, but in an updated physical and musical setting. For those of us who were patient, the show was everything it could have been, and everything it deserved to be. Yes. Digweed can still be that good.
RA