Live
< Creamfields 2008, Hatton, Warrington
words by Reef Younis
Last weekend, every ligger and swigger, every mover and shaker, every dance head, deck head and wreck head stumbled from their Saturday morning recovery position to converge on a Hatton field and ensure the weekend landed somewhere around Warrington. As much muddy fields as Creamfields, not even the belligerence of the shoe-claiming gloop underfoot could prevent the party people having it their way. And have it large they did for two nights of plugged in, amped up electronic carnage.
With a line-up gloriously pandering to every electronic impulse, we navigated the set clashes, sidestepped the funfair and swallowed our earplugs, ready to embrace the daddy of post-festival hangovers. Tinnitus aside we let Simian Mobile Disco hustle us from late afternoon in the early evening, Erol Alkan pummel the sun into a wise, early bed time, and James Zabiela’s cool, calm and collected tech-house ease us into the first of our bleary-eyed, weary-legged Creamfields marathons.
Without standing on ceremony, 2manydjs open with their huge remix of ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’ and soon get the night rolling with crossover charm and peerless song selection. Dropping one of the tracks of the weekend – ‘Mars’ by Fake Blood – the 2manydjs fluid party mish mash doesn’t let up, to the universal delirium of the Chibuku tent’s masses. Dropping the beat count slightly, Claude Von Stroke’s a world away from the riotous discordance that preceded him. Where 2manydjs engineered and launched themselves into a party atmosphere, he merely instils an unfathomable desire to dance with a set of crystalline, hypnotic tech house that’s subtly switched up between American house and clinical minimal. It’s a seamless set that subtly infiltrates your mindset and allows Claude Von Stroke to slink and slide us into the morning.
Before we succumb to total hypnosis, we slope off to see Hervé keep it strictly Brixton, with a set of bouncing, grinding, chopping heavy beats and raucous breakdowns that do much to break Von Stroke’s spell, while Eric Prydz shows the uninitiated there’s more to him than a sample and borderline X-rated video with a headline set big on house monsters in the Cream tent.
A less successful, but no less worthy headliner is Thornton Heath’s Frankmusik who gamely plays out to an empty Annie Mac Presents… tent - not that it bothers him much. Despite the tumbleweed atmosphere, Frank’s way too busy ducking, weaving and joyfully dropping filthy, dirty bombs of thumping power-pop and electro club to the insomnia-addled few lucky enough to stick around. He even in avertedly soundtracks a brief, running scuffle between security and a cluster of marauding thugs that barrels to a muddy climax.
With our clubfeet synched up to our inner club head, we saunter into the arena to catch Kissy Sell Out dispense with the decks for a live band dynamic that’s chirpy, upbeat and sadly devoid of his marauding electro nastiness before Canadian prodigy Deadmau5 (pronounced ‘Dead Mouse’) absolutely nails the Radio 1 tent, hammering out a set of bulldozing electro house and epic progressive house to the quickly cramming delight of those inside. Switch consummately lives up to his moniker with thumping mid set meltdowns, sordid remixes – The Futurehead’s ‘Worry About It Later’ – and total disdain for genre as he crashes together electro, dub and breakbeat with experimental, agitated ease. Only stopping for a few margaritas, we roll up to the Radio 1 Introduces… bus to catch Glaswegian noiseniks Dolby Anol exuberantly strut their good stuff. As the sun sets, their bleeped up electro allows the homeless, tentless minority, to happily get their muddy groove on and gives passing stragglers an opportunity to shake their bad thing en route to the cash point queue.
Although tempted by a brief joyride, we take off to the Creamfields main stage where, resplendent in white tuxes, 2manydjs brothers David and Stephen Dewaele seem to have shaken off the excess of the night before to hit the main stage as Soulwax. A long way from the guitar driven anthemia of ‘Much Against Everyone’s Advice’ they route their way through Nite Versions tracks ‘Miserable Girl’ and ‘Another Excuse’ before closing with a lively take on Daft Punk’s ‘Robot Rock.’
Late of the Pier look like it’s way past their bedtime. Now, this is no disrespect to their collective ages, but more to do with the fact that both vocalist Samuel Eastgate and bassist Andrew Faley have taken to the stage in pyjamas and bathrobe respectively. Regardless, it quickly becomes apparent that cocoa won’t be forthcoming and that Late of the Pier ain’t here to sing no lullabies. Consequently, they riotously hurtle through tracks ‘The Bears Are Coming’ and ‘Bathroom Gurgle’, helping to ensure that bedtime will fall the wrong side of Sunday.
Seeing us through to the early 11pm finish, Underworld’s Karl Hyde is our ebullient chrome-clad ringmaster, relentlessly, euphorically whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Between his monotone intensity and the seminal swathes of Rick Smith and Darren Price-engineered techno, Hyde bounds between elaborate inflatable props and clasps a night vision camera, his every move blown up onto the big screen. Green-tinged and grimacing, he barks us into the spiritual reverie of ‘Born Slippy’, a track which still heralds an automatic reaction to close your eyes, throw your hands aloft and wait for the bass barracking you’ve heard a million times before. Except this time, in real time, it’s something more, something inexplicable. It’s the sound track to every bout of drugged up recklessness, every lost weekend, every intoxicated Human Traffic-style cliché. Yet, for all the open mouthed exhilaration, as Underworld exit stage left, you can’t help but feel a little bewildered. You’ve just witnessed a performance worthy of ending worlds but it’s barely 10.45pm, and guess what? It’s bedtime.
Exclusive for loudandquiet.com
