The ill-ec-tro-nic: Smoke On This

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Smoke On This

Having spent most of 2005's TDK Cross Central wandering between stages in a bid to check out loads of different acts and then going home a little disappointed by the lack of decent music I'd seen I'd decided to not only turn up much earlier this year but also to be more selctive about who / how many I saw. Things got off to a bad start what with our motley rave posse finally getting through the gates at just gone eleven then making an ill-judged (based on crowds) trip to see Spank Rock before heading right back to where we'd started to check out Alex Smoke. From here on in things got much better and Mr Smoke turned out an absolutely belting live set in the packed heat of The Cross. We then checked out Ellen Allien on DJ duties who was also wicked although I'm not gonna post any of her stuff up as she seems to be hogging a little too much of the blogosphere limelight at the moment. Hot Chip were also pretty good although the atmosphere when I've seen them at this and other big gigs was nowhere near as good as their set at a small club in Nottingham I checked out earlier in the year. As the night was getting on at this point we decide more raving was in order so we headed over to The Key for a spot of Ivan Smagghe who was pretty solid although not as dirty as I would have liked but still good enough for us to stay there until what we thought was the finish. However, as we wandering wearily towards the exit some tasty tunes were still coming from the outdoor stage / tent so feeling up for a final shuffle we headed in there and threw what was left of our moves particularly when the DJ (not sure who it actually was) dropped the jackin' techno filth of DJ Hell's mix of Paranoid Dancer which damn near destroyed the place. Oh yeah, he then followed that with a little known tune called Strings of Life by some chancer from Detroit - respect! Roll on next year :-)