- The third day of The Celtronic festival is less about going out and getting mangled, and more about chilling. If you're a true "mucker," you'll have six different colours of wristbands on your arm to remind of the partying thus far. And, if all is really going well, none of it should be that clear of a memory at all.
London's Jon Hopkins, a master of ethereal Eno-esque musical meanderings, had the honor of headlining the night. He's perhaps best known for being plucked from the annals of ambient electronic music by Coldplay to help them with Viva La Vida, and spending the last six months of 2008 opening up for them across the US and Europe. He was joined by the skins and synths of local act Arkeye and Ryan Vail, the latter of which was accompanied by a flautist and a young singer from the city. Vail was the better of the two, drifting in and out of lush, orchestral sounds, which proved the right precursor to Hopkins's ambient, psychedelic and emotive tracks.
Working with a repertoire of songs taken mostly from his new album which has been four years in development, Hopkins dropped "Insides" early on and it cut through the space with a resonance of turbulence-style intensity. Some couldn't resist and got out of their seats to dance in the aisles at the back of the dusty old church hall. A guy I spoke with later said that the sound was so intense that he felt his face reverbing from the onslaught of volume and air. As he went into gnarling techno territory with a Korg Micro controller and three Kaos pads, Hopkins punched the controls to open the gates on his Ableton set-up and contorted his body in agitated movement.
I was doing the same in my seat, furiously attacking the air with my fist. And when it all went calm I stared at the stage, wondering how a guy that looks so sweet and innocent could create something so very dark and audacious. The boy in the aisle behind me seemed to agree. He was wearing a massive grin while rocking back and forth in his seat spluttering, "Brillant, brillant, this is brillant, aww fucking yes, he's brilliant."