Buzz replies!

A friend of mine Buzz made a good point about the Dopplereffekt gig which I’m going to repost here (videos from said gig are available, just click on the “next page” link at the bottom of this page):

“Hmm, I’ll start this by admitting I’m not the biggest Doppler fan. But to say this gig was Live is a bit untruthful, from where I was sitting it was a cd playing with the occasional bit of keyboard playing, you can see in the video his hand counting the beats from the backing cd, and playing a few bits here and there.

I know the promoters did a lot of work to organise this etc and I’m not bad mouthing them etc. I’m sure for the big Doppler Fans it was great, but I wasn’t too impressed.”

You’re right, calling it “live” in the sense that it’s a band, or group of people actually performing the music for you would have been a bit of a stretch. Like I said in my review of the first time I saw Dopplereffekt “live” (in Malmo, Sweden last year, check the archives, it was just the girl on her own that time, same deal with the keyboard and her not really doing anything), it wasn’t really a live show, it was more like a showing at a gallery where the artist also makes an appearance. You don’t get to see him paint the pictures again, but you get to seem him present them.

Normally I’d feel slightly cheated by this, but there are a few extenuating circumstances in this case:

a) I’m the world’s second biggest Dopplereffket fan (Stephen Rennicks being the number one fan

b) I think Dopplereffekt’s music is of such a quality and calibre that hearing a CD of about 50 minutes of their unreleased music while watching them sitting there is worth me flying from Berlin to Dublin for (yes, they also played a few released tracks, bringing their total set up to 70 minutes)

c) It’s Dopplereffekt!!!!! DOPPLEREFFEKT!!!!! In the flesh!!

You’re right Buzz, it wasn’t really live, like most gigs we go to. But I thought it was a very special occasion and personally don’t feel cheated at all, and it seemed like most of the crowd there enjoyed it too. One piece of worthless anecdotal evidence for you that wouldn’t stand up in court: I invited a friend from work along who’d never heard of them before and he enjoyed the music and the show, but understood that to call it live was definitely stretching it.

Also to quote SImon Conway’s dad: “How much did you pay them? Yous feckin’ eejits!”

If they played Dublin tomorrow I’d book a flight tonight and go see them again. They’re/he’s a unique artist in a world of of increasingly watered down techno, in this fanboy’s opinion.

PS to Buzzer, sorry to hear you got ejected from the Alden/Intergalatic Gary gig! I was there for a while and enjoyed what music I heard, but found it to be much too packed and my rarely seen claustrophobia kicked in so I left early and went to that new Andrew’s Lane place where Simon F was playing.

Here are some videos of Gary and Tyrell in action: