Last night, I went up to Minneapolis to check out Sasha and Digweed on tour together for the first time in 6 years. The last time, they brought the sounds of Delta Heavy throughout North America and the rest of the world. This year, they're starting off the Spring season of clubbing the very same way.
In Minneapolis, they came to Epic, which everyone in Minneapolis would know formerly as The Quest.
As most of you know, near the end of 2007 I smashed my car and have been making use of public transportation rather than buying a new one. This works out pretty good for getting around madison, but making it outside of madison can be difficult. Since I couldn't find anyone to go on a work night, I had to do a little investigating into the cheapest way to travel 300 miles north by north-west.
I settled on taking a fancy greyhound bus since it was super-cheap. It cost $88 round-trip and took 5.5 hours. That's almost cheaper than driving actually, since it was always take me almost 2 tanks of gas to get there and back. PLUS, now I can sleep on the way up and have plenty of energy for the club.
The greyhound station in minneapolis was only a few blocks away from Epic, so this was a very very lucrative offer. Unfortunately, I waited until the night before to buy the tickets, so I had to get to the station in Madison earlier than I would've liked to redeem my tickets.
It wasn't half bad... Though, I got to Epic about half an hour early, so I sat outside until the doors opened. The "line" was rather disappointing. 6 years ago when waiting outside of the same place half an hour early on a work night, the line stretched along the sidewalk to the edge of the building. Today, around the same time, I was the only one that made up the line. Rather sad, if you ask me, but it didn't that long for people to show up after I did.
Over half an hour later, music finally began to seep through the open doors and crawl into the streets like a mist. After trying to figure out when we were going to get in, the music acted as a starting bell as we jumped off our marks and filed inside.
Epic was actually pretty nice. It had been almost 3 years since the last time I stepped into the quest and that was when they shoveled James Holden up into the back room, rather than the main stage. You could still tell it was the quest, but they made some very nice changes to the place to make it more accessible.
Changes such as flattening all of the first floor to the same level, rather than having a raised dance floor and a fenced off area in the back. They also chucked all the chairs and tables on the ground floor, and had very few tables here and there for standing. They took out a little bit of the balcony facing the stage and put in a stair-case right in the middle of the club, rather than going through the back room. All those crappy TVs are gone and replaced with flat screens. Nearly all the walls glow and change colors with the rest of the lights.
The Quest went through a huge makeover thanks to the new management. Epic is still very much The Quest, but with much more than just a new coat of paint. Plus that scafolding is no longer hugging the front of the building. That's a huge plus. There's still some road construction out front, though.
The night began with the very solid sounds of Kazel. He did an excellent job of setting the tone for the evening. I don't really remember most of his set because of what was to come after, but I was never bored during his time. It built to the suspense and excitement of Sasha and Digweed.
At the same time, I was amusing myself with some of the crowd members.
One of the most beautiful things of the evening, were the visuals up on the stage. It was fitted with tons and tons of LED lights, which formed something simliar to a Jumbotron screen right in front of us. The visuals used on these LEDs were stylistic 2D graphics in a 3D space. Mostly shapes moving around and different colors, whee! It was quite pretty.0
After plenty of time to build a massive crowd, Sasha and Digweed took over the stage, finished up Kazel's last track, and Sasha began his sound.
Sasha took the point position with Abelton. Unlike Delta Heavy or previous Sasha and Digweed collaborations, this was pure Sasha. He has evolved passed fundacion, but it's still very similar. His entire set up on the stage sounded like one big song, rather than flippin' back and forth from 'record' to 'record'.
I dunno... I feel like I'm missing something when I hear Sasha these days. It's been like these since Fundacion for me. Maybe I just don't have the ears..
Don't get me wrong though.. It was still pretty badass. ^_^
After an hour, It was John Digweed's turn. Much like Sasha, Digweed played his own stuff and he played it hard. In my opinion, Digweed totally stole the show. His songs pounded with a thunderous beat while a flutter and flicker.. a very slight hint of melody guided you from track to track.
I should really keep up with the Kiss 100 RSS feed.
For the final hour, Sasha came back and tag teamed with Digweed. They hopped back and forth between stuff in their own collection and became a distinctive sound of their own. Though, unlike Delta Heavy or previous endevors, it was a mixture of the two.
Anywho, after the night ended, most of us didn't want to leave so when we got outside we just hung around. whoo.
