Two Tribes 2005: Plastik Electronic Stage @ Mulberry Farm, Perth (06/03/2005)
The Plastik Electronic Stage at this year’s Two Tribes event provided quite an assortment of international acts over a range of genres. Techno, house, progressive and breaks DJ’s comprised the bill which certainly promised some serious diversity. Whilst many may complain that this was a nuisance (having a room full of different genres), it seemed to provide punters with a room of ‘randomness’ and a look around the room at any point throughout the day would suggest that many people enjoyed the various sounds on offer and spent a large portion of their time there.
Local lads Clint W and Cee got the beats in the tent started, throwing down an undeniably funky blend of tech house to light techno. Whilst this pair are more renowned for their harder versus action, the groovy and much more subtle set they delivered was by far the best local set of the day and made for some early on ass shakin’ action.
Sets by Adam Kytka and Boy then ensued which lost much of the techy sounds of the first set and kept things on a predominantly house note. The few people that were present in the tent for the first set slowly dwindled out. However those chilling in the outside area seemed to be enjoying what they were hearing. As the first international was set to hit the decks, the tent slowly began to fill and by the end of Boy’s set there was a small but sizeable crowd ready for the breaks onslaught that was to ensue.
DJ Hyper wasted no time in delving right into his style of choice, breaks. Resisting the much more upfront and rather ‘party’ style breaks sounds, Hyper started out with much slower and subtle sounding breakbeat tracks all of which had a light hint of techy and electro influences. This kept the diehard breaks crew stoked as well as catching the attention of many who weren’t so into the style. His mixing technique was smooth and kept to a minimum; he obviously wanted to let the tracks speak for themselves. Moving through a stack of tunes, Hyper dropped Alter Ego – Rocker (Christian J Remix) and a remix of Moguai – Get:On during his set which saw most punters erupt into a sea of “Hell Yeah’s” and dancing. Everyone present in the tent seemed to be really digging Hypers sounds one of which was getting very carried away. A guy was yelling out “Hyper Hyper, Let’s Go” repeatedly whilst attempting to breakdance shirtless on the grass keeping those present for his random bust out more than amused. It’s always good to see people digging the music.
In what was quite a dramatic change in styles, Dave Seaman then took over where Hyper left off and got his set into full gear straight away with some big room progressive style tracks. During the first few minutes of his set, there seemed to be some commotion in the room as the breaks heads began their mission out of the room and fans of Seaman flocked in. By his second track, Seaman had the tent nicely full of punters grooving away to his big room sounds. His set predominantly explored the more melodic sounds of progressive house which featured breakdown interludes in the form of broken beat tracks or of the more tech laced variety (eg. Nathan Fake – Outhouse Main Mix). Moving through a fair number of tracks, Seaman’s mixing was ultra smooth and the programming of his tracks was commendable as it was as if each track just flowed right into the next. Seaman’s set seemed to be appreciated by a large number of punters, regardless of their taste preferences as the tent was nicely full the whole time. The odd glow stick waving in the air was not uncommon during the more melodic moments of his set.
Junior Sanchez then delivered what was by far the worst set of the day. The fact that the tent was empty due to the The Prodigy playing on main stage certainly didn’t help this, however a bit of effort from the man would without a doubt have not gone astray. Looking around the tent, it was hard to actually believe there was an international DJ behind the decks as at the peak of his set; there were only five punters present. The tracks Sanchez played were predominantly house with a smattering of electro and even electro clash at times. Whilst this may sound like a feasible combination of styles, the actual tracks he chose to play were rather off-putting at times, with remixes of Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For, Blur – Song 2 and even a Living End tune getting a play. The use of commercial track remixes is a guaranteed set killer in most cases and this was definitely what happened to Sanchez’s set. Along with this was the lack of enthusiasm he displayed whilst playing as well as his severe inability to do anything more than the simplest of mixes. Regardless of this however, the five people present during his set seemed to be digging his beats, happily dancing away to the random aural concoction.
The true headliner of the tent, Richie Hawtin stepped up to the stage a little before his set was due to commence to test out his equipment set up which consisted of two lap tops, a mixer and two decks. As Sanchez’s last track played out, Hawtin was still not yet sorted so a rather annoying loop (sampled from Sanchez’s last track) repeated itself until the man was ready. Getting down to business, Hawtin fired up a track from his laptop and got the ball rolling with a smooth and fairly minimal track. A massive response from the audience resulted as Hawtin introduced another layer and then another and so on until the system was pumping out a smooth cacophony of perfectly layered techno beats. After a short while however, it was clear that this set wasn’t going to be up to par of the usual Hawtin standard. In terms of programming, the selected tracks and loops weren’t as flowing or transitional as expected from Hawtin and at times there were some relatively messy mixes when he was attempting to mix a track on the turntable into an existing one off Final Scratch. It did seem however, that the problem was with the turntable itself, not Hawtin’s skills and after the needles on each turntable were changed, the problem didn’t occur again. The crowd seemed to be quite forgiving, cheering on Hawtin as he fixed the problem and then moved on. He is definitely more of an extended set DJ and this was evident in his pacing and flow problems that seemed to arise during his hour and a half set. Overall, Hawtin’s set was still one of the more quality sets delivered in the tent that day regardless of the technical problems and lack of flow. The tent was crammed with stoked punters for his sets entirety, no doubt an indication of appreciation of the set he dropped.
The inherent randomness that the line up in the Plastik tent offered at this years Two Tribes provided an awesome range of talented locals and internationals on offer. I’m sure many punters discovered styles they never knew existed and fell in love with many new tracks. There was some severe variety action going down in this tent and the crew present were loving it.
