Tangerine Dream at the Rickshaw

Well, that was cool and unexpected... I went more out of curiosity than fandom (though I love a few Tangerine Dream soundtracks, none moreso than Sorcerer). It's not the sort of band you'd necessarily expect to see at the Rickshaw, not the sort of room they likely play often, but it worked quite well. At one point in the introduction, someone who I am guessing was Thorsten Quaeschning explained that they would be playing in a minor key (for at least one composition?) because the room suited that, whereupon, to demonstrate, he played two contrasting notes, one of which set the walls vibrating, and one of which didn't. He got a laugh out of the audience, but between his accent, my slightly compromised hearing (from years of unprotected concert-going) and perhaps because I was up on the balcony, I only picked out the general shape of his comments. The sonic illustration was striking, though (they opted for walls-not-vibrating mode, by the way; one guesses some bands, like Swans, might go the other route). 

Quaeschning also said something a bit arch, in outlining the plan for the night, about how they would spend a period waiting for the audience to clap, which I did hear and got a chuckle out of, since too loud/ too expressive audiences can put a damper on a show like this. In fact, just before he said this, I was posting my prayers on Facebook as the night began that the audience be skilled and attentive listeners. For a name draw like this -- a crowd that will, for example, cheer loudest for the Risky Business theme, if you see what I mean -- you have a fair chance of getting unskilled listeners, people who will chat, whoop intrusively in the middle of a performance, get out of their seats and push their way down the aisle while the band is playing, dragging you out of "the zone," so to speak, making your irritation with them the center of your attention, as opposed to the music being played. This did, in fact, happen a few times during the night, but not too badly, while I was present -- in part perhaps because, as two or three people in the audience continued their conversations into the first, subtle number, I said, loud enough for the whole balcony to hear (but not TOO loud -- I wasn't yelling, just politely assertive), "Please be quiet." This worked! ...though in part, the relatively good behaviour of the audience may also have been due to the fact that the majority of people WERE intently listening (ahh!) and their focus was contagious. The choice of an "opening act" (images of rain, lightning over water, roiling clouds, and waves, superimposed over each other, with rain sounds on the PA, suiting the "bomb cyclone" going on outside) might have helped put people in a mood, too, though there was plenty of chatter over that  (a shame, because it was sonically quite interesting and rich.... though with your eyes closed, the babble of a crowd can go together quite well with the sounds of a storm, morphing together into something quite trance inducing...). 

Of course, the irony was, for at least a couple of numbers (the second and third compositions played), the band went into some sort of Euro-disco dance club mode, with jagged flashing visuals, a strong beat, and plenty of incentive to get up and move your bodies. Which no one that I could see did, but I didn't peer over the edge of the balcony; everybody seemed to be seated, when I'd been below (so much so that there was no decent seat available, hence my move upstairs), and certainly we remained so on the balcony. Did the band play these more amped up tracks as part of a philosophy of audience engagement, or...? ("Get it out of their system if they want something they can move around to?"). Not sure - it was kind of an odd move. I didn't know the names of the compositions, didn't care for them much. But I got to hear the Sorcerer theme ("Betrayal") with my eyes closed (which came fifth in the evening) and no chatter from the crowd. That was pretty goddamn cool. While every composition had complimenting, fairly abstracted film projections to enhance the experience, it was with my eyes closed that things worked best: cascading, shimmering flurries of notes on synth and/ or violin, dragging your mind down rabbitholes of attention with much colour and curious contours, interesting shapes for the mind's eye to contemplate... quite lovely... Luckily, this describes the vast majority of what they did. 

I was very happy that the Rickshaw sounded as good as it did, too, and that maybe the name draw brought a few extra people out. I'm actually more keen to see the shows on Wednesday and Friday, but thanks to Mo and the Rickshaw staff for having facilitated this rather magical experience. (I did duck out as soon as my bladder determined it was time for me, too, to get up -- but I was underdressed for the rain and the words "bomb cyclone" are kind of intimidating, so I wanted to get home before it really started tipping... Whereupon my wife and I revisited the 80's vampire classic Near Dark, with guess-who doing the soundtrack...?).