- By the time the Red Bull Music Academy officially kicked off in New York last month, it had already taken over the city. The first posters cropped up in subway stations a few months back, and before long they had spread onto metro passageways and the sides of buildings in Manhattan. One of the earliest advertisements mounted in the Bedford stop was emblazoned with the brass tacks about Four Tet's RBMA performance in 12-inch lettering: MAY 8. WEBSTER HALL.
Four Tet's show fell on a Wednesday. Earlier that week, RBMA hosted gigs by Flying Lotus, Mykki Blanco, Le1f and Laurel Halo. In the days that followed, Gerd Janson, Metro Area and artists from the Night Slugs crew also played. But Four Tet's sold-out appearance was perhaps the most buzzed-about event of them all. RBMA nights usually feel more intense than regular showcases, because if you show up more than an hour after doors open, you might not make it in at all. So, everyone who wanted to see Four Tet's highly anticipated set at Webster Hall squeezed in the doors before Jon Hopkins started his opening set.
The first few hours felt a bit like a cocktail party. As Hopkins twisted through his live set, attendees and RBMA employees lingered near the bars on the upper and lower floors and staked out spots on the main dance floor. The crowd didn't let loose until Four Tet came on and pulled out one of his recent hits. Within the first 10 minutes of his live set, the tribal yodels from "The Track I've Been Playing..." rang out across the room. The crowd whooped and hurrahed at each recognizable melody that materialized from the improvised stretches, gleefully crushing each others' toes underfoot. Four Tet delivered many of his most popular tunes to keep them yelling: "Jupiters," "Plastic People," his remix of FaltyDL's "Straight and Arrow," and "For These Times," his addition to the recent Think + Change compilation on NonPlus.
Toward the end of the night, Hebden engineered a long improvised break that petered out into a single kick drum throughout the course of a few minutes. But the show didn't end there. Slowly, he built the rhythm back up, first with a few claps to accompany the kick, and then with a timid, wavering synth that drew shouts from onlookers. There was a pause, a few moments of silence—and then the trickling melody on "128 Harps" flooded Webster Hall, and the dancers resumed their merry stomping and crashing-into-one-another for one last tune before Four Tet said goodnight.