- Solstice Music Festival - Japan, Mt. Fuji (jul 2001)
| no flyer yet | Party name : Date : Place : Info : Artists : | Solstice Music Festival 21 jul 2001 Japan, Mt. Fuji Shpongle, Logic Bomb, Koxbox, Etnica, The Antidote, Synthetic. |
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Photos by first photo by the Twisted staff, the 2 other by Phase2.
Shpongle came on live at 10pm. It featured Raja ram in an incredibly colorful flourecent magicians robe, with celtic designs and magickal symbols, holding his silver flute - he played smooth, live and confidently with no mistakes or blowbn notes. . behind him was Simon Posford at the controls of an incredible large Korg syntherizer. to the right was two yong guys , very straight looking, playing the chello and electric bass and both were master musicians. . to the left of Raja and Posford were two lady vocalists, someitmes holding up strange shpongled-fluro masks over their faces while they sung. Arround the UV lit stage were various Shpongle masks, fruit flutes and other psychedelic artifacts.
The show opened with a very slow, orchestral introduction leading into "and the day turned to night". The band played togther very coherently and professionally, everyone seeming to be mentally synched with each other. At first it didn't sound like "shpongle" at all, just classical music...but finally simons synthesizer kicked it, and it became very clear that it was indeed Shpongle. it all sounded very beautiful and very LIVE, not like your standard trance "live" with remixes and tweaked effects of pre-recorded parts.
next, there was a track, presumably off the new album, with terrence mcKanna sampel talking about inernal hallucionations and the tones and sounds heard during smoked DMT, with "shimmering, pulsating meticallic surfaces". i could see what he was talking about behind my own closed eyelids, and it was quite impressive.
I do feel that the samples and meanings of some of the shpongle songs were partially lost of the Japanese aduience, because not everyone could understand the esoteric meanings and guided visualizations of the samples. A few people semed to get it, but a lot of people couldn't understand. I do understand now why they wanted to make it a little more "accessabl". The crowd at the Solstice festival in Japan is absolutely top notch, bright and radiant goaheads from all over the world - and not everyone therre could break into shpongle consciousness. i heard people muttering about how it was "strange", "a bit difficult to dance to" - and I do understand. I enjoyed it immensely and "got it", but shpongle is indeed strange trip when you see what it's all about...visually and musically. Everyone, especially raja ram, was a bit "tripping out" and singing or lip-syncing the strange samples "do do do do DMT, everybody, LSD do DMT divine momnents" "it's 3 oclock on what may be&", "\doo doo do doo dou do Dah!" but I loved it. Your typical house music fan would not!
then they played another track off the new album with the "turkish opera singing" and it was okay, but less psychedelic than the first two tracks.
next "Wooowooo Have a KIT KAT&" was played, a kind of funny and light touch, but it was catchy and well done. for me, the most impresisve track was "Vapor Rumors". The remix simon played was fantastic, and the orchestral accomplaniment was absolutely perfect, and shpongle everyone kind of danced arround, "freaked out" and pantomimied the alien arrival.
after that followed a fresh remix of DMT...long and slow... with evryone singing togther. i could really feel the melodies and the didjeridoo like deep drones..and could see into multi colored fractal dimensions. DMT was followed by a very hair rasing "noise jam" where they played teeth grinding intense noises on their synths and instrumebnts that really "woke me up" into a clear psychedelic state.
after that followd some more vocal tracks from the new album, and then they kind of walked off suddenly. People applauded, but not so much. Some people seemed to be relieved that the strangness of the trip was over. I personally was impressed, but kind of in too much of a daze to say or do much. people realized the show was over, but some people really shouted and applauded, and shpongle came back on for one more track.
review by phase2 taken from Psynews