Day Seventeen - Saturday, February 16, 2008
Despite not getting to sleep until 4 am, I was up at 9 and getting my set ready for Dublin. I’ve decided that despite the amount of weird, odd-tempo, breaky pieces I’ve produced, I should assemble a more smoothly flowing dance set for my live PA. I get most of it sorted out before meeting Chris and heading to the airport. We were both pretty wrecked. Going out all night last night after having gone big the previous night was really wearing on us. Glasgow to Dublin is just sort of a numb haze in my memory.

I didn’t see much of a Dublin. I was on Irish soil for no more than 20 hours. The club I was playing at is called “The Hub,” and it’s located right in the tourist-rich Temple Bar area. When I first entered Dublin, it looked like a really, massive beautiful city worthy of some in-depth exploration. As we approached Temple Bar, every block looked exactly like the last with tourist trap after tourist trap. We were dropped off at The Morgan, a nice hotel with a really fun padded elevator that felt more like an isolation room in a psych ward. I still had to finish preparing my live set and we were just to beat to do anything but kick it in our room and watch football (soccer, as us yanks call it) and do music.

The fancy promoter-sponsored meal had to be skipped as the man in charge had a lot of errands to run before meeting us. We were on our own to find quality food at a reasonable price in Temple Bar, which is impossible. We settled on a Chinese restaurant because we’re obviously idiots. Word of advice—do not eat Chinese food in the middle of the tourist capital part of Ireland. Our stomachs were turned for hours.

We met Donal, the promoter, around 10 pm and went to The Hub for a soundcheck. We went in through “the back door,” which starts in a hotel lobby, goes down a hall past several rooms, wraps around to an ancient stairwell, opens back up into what looks like someone’s living room connected to a small homestyle dining room, goes through a dark hall, down a flight of stairs, past some institutional looking bathrooms and eventually into the bar. This all happened in about twenty seconds. It felt like one of those strange dreams where the room you’re in is constantly changing.

The Hub is basically a small rock bar. It was really tough to predict what the night was going to be like. The soundcheck went great and we went back to the room to nap for a bit.

I was out right up until fifteen minutes before my set. Stuart from Slam had just showed up and Cam up to grab us. Ten minutes later, I had my laptop open and on and ready to go. The DJ before me had his records strewn about all over the stage, out of their sleeves, to the point that I had nowhere to stand until I he cleaned up. I’ve never seen just disrespect for one’s own vinyl collection. He ran a tad long and I cut the first track off my set to ensure Stuart would have time to play after me.

Now having all my technical issues sorted out, the set went off without a hitch. Audience-wise, it was the exact opposite of the Cafe D’Anvers experience. That was a big club with a decent sized crowd of people who didn’t care. This was a little club with Dublin’s real fans crowded right up against the stage and howling the whole time. It felt like Portland—a dark little basement rock bar taken over for a techno show with a lot of heads in attendance. It was fun and I met a lot of really great, well-informed, fun people there, and spent most of the night after my set making new friends.

Stuart had just played at Fabric the weekend before so wasn’t into it as much, I think. I now know that whatever gig you play next after Fabric is going to be the worst gig of your life. Looking back at the previous weekend, I think a lot of people would have been stoked to play D’Anvers. A couple years ago I would have been thrilled. Meh…

Dublin seems pretty isolated, scene wise. With me playing live on my laptop and Stuart playing Serato off of CDJs, we had a pure digital setup. For many there, it was the first time they’d walked into a dance party without turntables. A couple people were trying to talk to me while I was playing live, because they thought I was controlling the lights. I felt like Michael J. Fox in the first Back to the Future. EXACTLY like him.

Day Eighteen - Sunday, February 17, 2008

We shut down promptly at 3 am, got back to our rooms and onto to Glasgow not long after. I finally had my chance at a real night of rest since Wednesday. Thirteen hours of glorious sleep.

Links:
Let’s Go OutsideSpace

Photos courtesy of Let’s Go Outside