Future Classic Presents A Guy Called Gerald @ The Civic Underground, Sydney (19/12/2007)
to listen to their music now on 
It’s always a joyous occasion when one of the early pioneers of electronic music makes their first visit to Australia. But with reputation comes the possibility of disappointment. So many questions race through one’s mind when someone who has been in the game for nearly two decades comes to our sunburnt clubland: “is he as good as he used to be?”, “is he still playing old music?”, “has his sound changed for the better or worse?”. Thankfully, those doubts about A Guy Called Gerald were proven to be completely unfounded by his performance at Future Classic.
Peret Mako played a slightly daring warm-up set, mixing clicky, funky tech house with original and new school disco cuts, occasionally interspersed with scratching and juggling (which I can only imagine was bloody hard to do on that Allen & Heath V6 mixer). While not every tune was personally up my alley, within the context of the night it was definitely appropriate, and Gerald himself smiling and grooving away while he set up his equipment is about as strong an endorsement as you can get.
As A Guy Called Gerald finished setting up his live gear and signalled he was ready to begin, the dancefloor filled up and the tension in the air, to use a tired cliché, could have been cut with a knife. With baited breath we all awaited his first tune…what was it going to be? His classic Voodoo Ray? Some unreleased goodness? A total curveball that would completely empty the floor? Fortunately, Gerald hit the ground running and dropped a deep, crunchy tech house tune that instantly ignited the floor and sounded crisp, warm and ballsy on the Civic’s fantastic system. Maintaining that same level of depth for the entire three hour set, Gerald weaved his way through darker, more throbbing selections, tweaked-out acid rollers, funky grooves and head-swimming melodic numbers, all held together by a common thread of subtlety and complexity. There was a good mixture of old and new material, with plenty of tunes from his recent Proto Acid – The Berlin Sessions, as well as an extended version of Pacific State by 808 State and Voodoo Ray to finish.
For the tech nerds (like me) out there, Gerald was playing off two laptops running Reason, and a midi controller. Essentially, he was loading track files within Reason and utilising the virtual instruments and effects within Reason to tweak his tracks on the fly. It was almost like he was playing off a full hardware set-up compacted into two laptops; very impressive and it was as entertaining just watching him use the gear as it was dancing to the tunes.
All up, a quality performance that did A Guy Called Gerald’s reputation justice, and demonstrated that while some legends of the music sit on their laurels and continue to get booked off reputation alone, guys like Gerald (sorry, I couldn’t resist) continue to push boundaries and hone their craft, striving for absolute perfection.
mickdon says...
it was an absolute brilliant live set from the man but 19/12/2007 ??? i must have lost a year somewhere