Steve Kane - Orbital: One Final Sunrise

Orbital: One Final Sunrise
Orbital were my favourite band of all time. I will probably never love another band as much as I loved Orbital. Not even Underworld (although my best ever gig experience is a toss up between the two). You see, when techno and acid house and raves and the second summer of love happened, I hated that music. Hated it. I just didn't get it. I thought it was horrible. I was listening to electronic music at the time, but it was people like Art Of Noise, Yello and Jean-Michel Jarre. And I was drifting into my rock and industrial metal phase so the attraction of thumpy thumpy tuneless noise was lost on me. But then The Orb arrived. I heard Little Fluffy Clouds and thought, "Hey, that's quite nice. It has a melody and everything." At around the same time a friend played me Orbital's Brown Album and again I thought, "Hmm, it's not all tuneless crap." And then I heard Prodigy's Music For The Jilted Generation and I began to understand how to listen to this kind of stuff. So I bought a copy of U.F.Orb and ...Jilted Generation and decided that I did actually like this stuff after all. And then in 1996 I bought my first Orbital album, In Sides, and I thought it was the most beautiful electronic album I had ever heard. In fact, I thought it was one of the most beautiful albums of any kind of music I had ever heard. To be fair, it is not your typical four-to-the-floor party techno album. By this, their fourth album, Orbital had moved into a more experimental phase. Their music was about textures and building layers upon layers of melody and intricate rythms. In Sides is an astonishing piece of work that everybody should own. And I was hooked. I went out and bought the Brown Album and then the Green Album and then Snivilisation, all great albums in their own ways. And then I bought an EP of a live recording of Satan and I vowed that I had to go to an Orbital gig. It was 1999 when I first saw them live and it was the best gig I had ever been to. It was one of the most gloriously joyful expereinces I had ever had of any kind. I was completely swept away by the music. I danced! My body started doing things that I never thought it could. I came out of that show bug-eyed and awe-struck. I have seen them play live five more times since then and each show has been an absolute stormer. That last Orbital gig I went to was in the summer of 2002 at Somerset House in London. The stage was in the middle of the forecourt of the building that used to house the Inland Revenue. Such an odd location for a rave but a perfect one. And it was another blinder of a show. On Friday 25 June 2004 Richard, my longest serving gig-buddy, and I made our way down to the Brixton Academy to see Orbital's last ever English indoor gig. Of course, they will also be doing a few festivals over the next two months so the Brixton gig didn't have the significance of a last ever live show but there was significance enough to make it special. I would have been devastated if I had not been able to see them one last time; the night I discovered they were to split up and that there was only one gig that I would realistically be able to attend was a fraught one. I secured a ticket but I would not relax until I saw the Hartnoll brothers onstage, dual head torches bobbing up and down in the darkness behind banks of electronic instruments and cranking out those magnificent tunes that have enriched my life for so many years. It was a blinding show. An absolute stormer. And very... very... loud. I've been to Brixton Academy a fair few times over the years to see all manner of bands but this Orbital gig was the loudest that I had ever experienced there. During the first track, Remind (from The Brown Album, if you are interested), my friend and I looked at each other and mouthed the word, "Fuck!" Talk about gut-shaking bass; I feared for my internal organs. Such volume meant that some of the intricate subtleties of Orbital's tunes were swamped but, goddamnit, the overall power remained and blew everyone across the room. There was only one track that didn't come off too well as all you could hear were the drums—the bass and synths evaporated into the noise—but the rest of the show was awesome. Remind, The Girl With The Sun In Her Head, Belfast, You Lot, Satan, The Box, Halcyon+On+On, One Perfect Sunrise and an encore of Impact, Doctor? and Chime... and then they were gone. That was it. All over. As wonderful as the show had been there was a sense of anti-climax. But that was inevitable as nothing could have quite lived up to anticipation and excitement that had been steadily growing in my gut since I booked the tickets back in April. They were never going to play every song that I would have liked to have heard live—they would have had to play for nigh on three or four hours—and so there was always going to be an element of disappointment that they didn't play P.E.T.R.O.L or Way Out or Lush or Forever or... But that is why Orbital are my favourite band: they have produced hours of the music that I love the most and no single gig would be enough to do their back catalogue full justice. Still, it was a great night. My mate and I even managed to stick around until 2:30am and strut our funky thangs to the Plump DJs who provided an after-show set of cool breakbeats. The only bum note of the night was the support act, Bent. I had heard of them but had never heard any of their music and having seen them live I am in no way inclined to seek out their records. They played the most banal set of coffee table easy listening muzak I have encountered in quite some time that makes Dido sound edgy. After half an hour I was trying to get them off the stage through the power of shear will but they persisted to meander through their set regardless. They certainly failed to get the crowd in the mood for the main event and it was down to the DJ that followed to get the crowd moving. He very sensibly played Underworld's Cowgirl which was gratefully received by the fans. On Wednesday 21 July 2004 I discovered that Orbital were doing their absolutely final live performance on a BBC Radio 1 session for John Peel. John ran a competition to give away ten pairs of tickets for this special, by-invitation-only performance. The question was simple (and John, bless him, apologised profusely for it): After which motorway did Orbital name themselves? Obviously, the answer was the M25. I sent off an e-mail to John Peel with the answer. Fifteen minutes later, John announced on air the winners... AND I FUCKING WON! I won a pair of tickets to Orbital's final live gig! Ever! I swear I nearly shat myself. The following Wednesday, Richard and I made our way to the BBC studios in Maida Vale, London, a poky, institutional looking building housing a labyrinthine network of low ceilinged corridors and small rooms. The studio were the session was to be recorded was very small. The Hartnoll boys had their equipment set up at one end with a small booth to one side where Peel would do his links. There was an area of but a few feet around Orbital's rig, the rest of the room taken up with stacks of recording equipment and a big mixing desk. Overlooking the floor was a balcony area with long sofas and low coffee tables and it was up there that we decided to park ourselves. With the hardcore fan boys and girls squashed into the small space around Orbital's equipment, we opted to stand at the rail of the balcony right over the Hartnolls' heads where there was more room to move and look down at the brothers at work. John Peel did his introduction from his booth, the crowd cheered as the brothers stepped up to their instruments and they kicked off what I can only describe as the best performance I have ever seen them do. The sound was crystal clear and you could hear every component part of the music. The Brixton gig had been awesome in terms of volume but the Academy's sound system has the tendency to swamp the details. But in that tiny little studio at Maida Vale you could hear everything, every bleep, every acid squelch, every bit of intricate percussion, everything that makes me love Orbital in the first place. And it was still suitably loud. For the first three tracks or so I simply leaned on the rail looking down at the brothers flitting between synths and mixing desk faders. It was fascinating to watch how they do it. Being a music tech hobbyist I got a bit nerdy about the equipment: "Wow, Rich! See that? That's a Roland Jupiter 8! And look! A TB-303!" The atmosphere in that place was awesome and I was just soaking it up with the music in disbelief that I was lucky enough to be there. By the fourth song, however, I was jumping around with abandon. It was easily the best gig I have ever been to. The thing that made it so special was the intimacy of it. It was as if Orbital were doing a gig in there living room for their mates. The usual separation of the band on stage and the audience wasn't there: it was a bunch of people having a party, two of whom happened to be playing music for the others. It was such an emotional send off for my favourite band. It was uplifting but also sad. It was the cathartic experience that the Brixton show had not quite managed to be. It was perfect. Plus, I got to mumble something to Paul Hartnoll in the gents after the show. Not entirely how I had hoped to meet one of my idols, with my dick out, taking a slash, but never mind.

Orbital: One Final Sunrise

Orbital were my favourite band of all time. I will probably never love another band as much as I loved Orbital. Not even Underworld (although my best ever gig experience is a toss up between the two). You see, when techno and acid house and raves and the second summer of love happened, I hated that music. Hated it. I just didn't get it. I thought it was horrible. I was listening to electronic music at the time, but it was people like Art Of Noise, Yello and Jean-Michel Jarre. And I was drifting into my rock and industrial metal phase so the attraction of thumpy thumpy tuneless noise was lost on me.

But then The Orb arrived. I heard Little Fluffy Clouds and thought, "Hey, that's quite nice. It has a melody and everything." At around the same time a friend played me Orbital's Brown Album and again I thought, "Hmm, it's not all tuneless crap." And then I heard Prodigy's Music For The Jilted Generation and I began to understand how to listen to this kind of stuff. So I bought a copy of U.F.Orb and ...Jilted Generation and decided that I did actually like this stuff after all.

And then in 1996 I bought my first Orbital album, In Sides, and I thought it was the most beautiful electronic album I had ever heard. In fact, I thought it was one of the most beautiful albums of any kind of music I had ever heard. To be fair, it is not your typical four-to-the-floor party techno album. By this, their fourth album, Orbital had moved into a more experimental phase. Their music was about textures and building layers upon layers of melody and intricate rythms. In Sides is an astonishing piece of work that everybody should own. And I was hooked. I went out and bought the Brown Album and then the Green Album and then Snivilisation, all great albums in their own ways. And then I bought an EP of a live recording of Satan and I vowed that I had to go to an Orbital gig.

It was 1999 when I first saw them live and it was the best gig I had ever been to. It was one of the most gloriously joyful expereinces I had ever had of any kind. I was completely swept away by the music. I danced! My body started doing things that I never thought it could. I came out of that show bug-eyed and awe-struck. I have seen them play live five more times since then and each show has been an absolute stormer. That last Orbital gig I went to was in the summer of 2002 at Somerset House in London. The stage was in the middle of the forecourt of the building that used to house the Inland Revenue. Such an odd location for a rave but a perfect one. And it was another blinder of a show.

On Friday 25 June 2004 Richard, my longest serving gig-buddy, and I made our way down to the Brixton Academy to see Orbital's last ever English indoor gig. Of course, they will also be doing a few festivals over the next two months so the Brixton gig didn't have the significance of a last ever live show but there was significance enough to make it special. I would have been devastated if I had not been able to see them one last time; the night I discovered they were to split up and that there was only one gig that I would realistically be able to attend was a fraught one. I secured a ticket but I would not relax until I saw the Hartnoll brothers onstage, dual head torches bobbing up and down in the darkness behind banks of electronic instruments and cranking out those magnificent tunes that have enriched my life for so many years.

It was a blinding show. An absolute stormer. And very... very... loud. I've been to Brixton Academy a fair few times over the years to see all manner of bands but this Orbital gig was the loudest that I had ever experienced there. During the first track, Remind (from The Brown Album, if you are interested), my friend and I looked at each other and mouthed the word, "Fuck!" Talk about gut-shaking bass; I feared for my internal organs. Such volume meant that some of the intricate subtleties of Orbital's tunes were swamped but, goddamnit, the overall power remained and blew everyone across the room. There was only one track that didn't come off too well as all you could hear were the drums—the bass and synths evaporated into the noise—but the rest of the show was awesome. Remind, The Girl With The Sun In Her Head, Belfast, You Lot, Satan, The Box, Halcyon+On+On, One Perfect Sunrise and an encore of Impact, Doctor? and Chime... and then they were gone. That was it. All over. As wonderful as the show had been there was a sense of anti-climax. But that was inevitable as nothing could have quite lived up to anticipation and excitement that had been steadily growing in my gut since I booked the tickets back in April. They were never going to play every song that I would have liked to have heard live—they would have had to play for nigh on three or four hours—and so there was always going to be an element of disappointment that they didn't play P.E.T.R.O.L or Way Out or Lush or Forever or... But that is why Orbital are my favourite band: they have produced hours of the music that I love the most and no single gig would be enough to do their back catalogue full justice.

Still, it was a great night. My mate and I even managed to stick around until 2:30am and strut our funky thangs to the Plump DJs who provided an after-show set of cool breakbeats. The only bum note of the night was the support act, Bent. I had heard of them but had never heard any of their music and having seen them live I am in no way inclined to seek out their records. They played the most banal set of coffee table easy listening muzak I have encountered in quite some time that makes Dido sound edgy. After half an hour I was trying to get them off the stage through the power of shear will but they persisted to meander through their set regardless. They certainly failed to get the crowd in the mood for the main event and it was down to the DJ that followed to get the crowd moving. He very sensibly played Underworld's Cowgirl which was gratefully received by the fans.

On Wednesday 21 July 2004 I discovered that Orbital were doing their absolutely final live performance on a BBC Radio 1 session for John Peel. John ran a competition to give away ten pairs of tickets for this special, by-invitation-only performance. The question was simple (and John, bless him, apologised profusely for it): After which motorway did Orbital name themselves?

Obviously, the answer was the M25.

I sent off an e-mail to John Peel with the answer.

Fifteen minutes later, John announced on air the winners... AND I FUCKING WON! I won a pair of tickets to Orbital's final live gig! Ever!

I swear I nearly shat myself.

The following Wednesday, Richard and I made our way to the BBC studios in Maida Vale, London, a poky, institutional looking building housing a labyrinthine network of low ceilinged corridors and small rooms. The studio were the session was to be recorded was very small. The Hartnoll boys had their equipment set up at one end with a small booth to one side where Peel would do his links. There was an area of but a few feet around Orbital's rig, the rest of the room taken up with stacks of recording equipment and a big mixing desk. Overlooking the floor was a balcony area with long sofas and low coffee tables and it was up there that we decided to park ourselves. With the hardcore fan boys and girls squashed into the small space around Orbital's equipment, we opted to stand at the rail of the balcony right over the Hartnolls' heads where there was more room to move and look down at the brothers at work.

John Peel did his introduction from his booth, the crowd cheered as the brothers stepped up to their instruments and they kicked off what I can only describe as the best performance I have ever seen them do. The sound was crystal clear and you could hear every component part of the music. The Brixton gig had been awesome in terms of volume but the Academy's sound system has the tendency to swamp the details. But in that tiny little studio at Maida Vale you could hear everything, every bleep, every acid squelch, every bit of intricate percussion, everything that makes me love Orbital in the first place. And it was still suitably loud.

For the first three tracks or so I simply leaned on the rail looking down at the brothers flitting between synths and mixing desk faders. It was fascinating to watch how they do it. Being a music tech hobbyist I got a bit nerdy about the equipment: "Wow, Rich! See that? That's a Roland Jupiter 8! And look! A TB-303!" The atmosphere in that place was awesome and I was just soaking it up with the music in disbelief that I was lucky enough to be there. By the fourth song, however, I was jumping around with abandon.

It was easily the best gig I have ever been to. The thing that made it so special was the intimacy of it. It was as if Orbital were doing a gig in there living room for their mates. The usual separation of the band on stage and the audience wasn't there: it was a bunch of people having a party, two of whom happened to be playing music for the others. It was such an emotional send off for my favourite band. It was uplifting but also sad. It was the cathartic experience that the Brixton show had not quite managed to be. It was perfect.

Plus, I got to mumble something to Paul Hartnoll in the gents after the show. Not entirely how I had hoped to meet one of my idols, with my dick out, taking a slash, but never mind.