Orbital
And so it came to pass that hundreds of shaven headed men descended on the Dome on Wednesday night. For the second coming had come to pass with a hometown gig as the first on the agenda.
In the Dome, as the lights went down, the stage lit up to show banks and banks of flash looking keyboards. Then in came the Hartnoll brothers with their trademark glowing glasses and the crowd went mad.
Orbital @ The Dome - 10/6/09
What followed was two hours of thumping techno the like of which the Dome hasn’t seen for a long time. Drawing heavily on the early albums and finishing with a couple of tracks from Insides, the brothers gave the crowd exactly what it wanted and never let the pace drop for a second. Even my least favourite, The Box, got a drum heavy make over which drowned out most of the harpsichord.
The light show was a series of small screens hanging over the band. These could have things projected on them or they could be folded away. The political side of the band, not really apparent in lyricless tunes, made itself visible here. And as the lights flashed in time with the drums, the sea of glowing cameras in the audience gave the impression of the show leaking into the auditorium.
It was worth noting though that most of the crowd were in their 30s and 40s. The ones down the front were too busy being deafened but the ones at the back were still throwing the shapes they learnt as teenagers. This coupled with the recent Prodigy gig at the Centre mean that “Raving” can now be considered a middle aged past time.
