The Orb
And
Sun Electric

July 1997
Clutch Cargo's -- Pontiac Michigan
*special thanks to the publicity
department at Island Records*

          This concert was one of the best I have ever seen. The sound at Clutch Cargo's is incredibly good. It's an older gutted out church, and holds around 1000 people I think...with an upper walkway above that continues around the main floor, (which makes phototographing bands there a bit easier to access), and is similiar to St Andrews Hall/The Shelter in Detroit, which is another church used for concerts in SE Michigan.
          Nonetheless, Clutch Cargo's was packed. And no wonder why -- Sun Electric and The Orb were indeed an incredible experience -- short of the younger-set who more likely than not, were relatively stoned out into Orblivion on various illegal trippy substances like Ecstacy and LSD -- one of whom such individuals (a female) passed out cold, nearly on top of me, eyes turned up in her sockets, and her head hit the floor with a big THUNK just inches away from me feet. Tsk Tsk, her and many others missed the best show I've seen since summer of 1996 when Download toured with Twilight Circus In Dub at St. Andrews Hall.
          Sun Electric started out with some great electronic mixing, and lasted around 45 mins or more. I am not familiar with his work, but I am going to find some of it as Sun's sound was very good. It was very spacious, ambiently experimental and layered with lots of diverse samples of sound.
          Alex and Andy went on stage next, and what a treat they were! The setup was that of an arc'ed pyramid made of what seemed to be of canvas, as if they were inside some sort of Space Ship. It wasn't very easy to see either Dr. Patterson or Andy due to the spaceship type of setup, and I am not sure who was tweeking what, but judging from what I heard, both of them were working quite hard.
          There were a number of video projectors set up with a huge screen behind them on the wall, running videos to that screen with the music that they produced (as well as projecting the films onto the "canvas walls" of the pyramid), and what great sounds came from The Orb! They played a number of tracks from earlier releases such as: Little Fluffy Clouds (one of my favourites!), Blue Room, Towers Of Dub, Outlands, Spanish Castles In Space, and Toxygene -- most if not all of the Orblivion CD. They played for around 1.5 hours. The light show was also worthy of mention here -- excellent! Lots of colors to keep the kiddies who were tripping busy. Some of you may remember too the video of the naked little baby dancing, and seemingly in beat to music! It was an incredible performance, one I won't forget.

          After the show, I went downstairs into a large room where Alex and Andy were -- relaxing with friends in what seemed to be the time for their *recovery* from the show. And rightfully, so as both of them were absolutely "dripping" in sweat as if they had just run a marathon in the heat of a mid-summer's day! I had a chance to talk with them both, offer them "Thanks" for such a great performance, and for coming to the U.S.A./Michigan. They were both very friendly and appeared pretty much wiped out from the past two hours of work.
If you like the music of The Orb and Sun Electric, DONT MISS THEM if they tour near you in the future.
They put out some of the best sound live in the experimental ambient groove area of music!

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