Some real highlights this weekend for me. Daedelus absolutely killed his set on Friday night. What a performer (see video below) – he’s the apotheosis of a DJ – playing his own tracks amidst a gazillion others with a big smile on his face and his hands darting around his Monome box. Steinski was better as a speaker at Sweet Talk on Thursday than as a mostly perfunctory DJ on Friday though it was nice to see him up there rocking his old nerdy emotionless self complete with nerdy trackball mouse selectah style.
Also good fun at !Kaboogie’s show on Thursday in ALT with Ed Devane and Ebola. Didn’t stick around for Mad EP though.
M83 were brilliant in Vicar Street and really took advantage of the soundsystem there. Precise serene synths, loads of “dum dum ba dum” ’80s drums behind a transparent drum shield. Just an immense sound. Channel One played a really nice set too. Good to see them again.
Managed to get into the DEAF closing party at about 11pm on Sunday. The place was swarming with Laurent Garnier fans, a lot of whom, couldn’t get into an over-stuffed Village for his mammoth 3 hour set so we’re furiously looking for refunds. Moritz Von Oswald had cancelled and there were rumours he suffered a stroke on the way over (bless him). There was a strange atmosphere about the place. Even Whelans had a high obnoxious drunk people quotient so we only stayed for Fuck Buttons who were fantastic, full of immense digital noise where every chord or progression is cheered on by the assembled as it’s so drawn out. A really great set with a lot more beats than their Primavera set in May. We had a quick look upstairs in the !Kaboogie room but left shortly afterwards due to the weird atmosphere permeating the place. Still though, that’s the only negative in a weekend full of positives. Seems like this year was largely a success for DEAF.
So, what did I miss?
Daedelus
More photos by the mighty Dolan after the jump.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
Last night’s closing party was indeed a little bit of a mess. I think Laurent Garnier really should have been given his own show, and perhaps limited the closing party concept to just upstairs and downstairs in Whelans, which would also have resulted in a lower asking price? Musically speaking Chequerboard, Rollers/Sparkers and Fuck Buttons were all brilliant, though worth €35, well who knows…
M83 was also very good, though at times the sound was so good that it was just like listening to the CD. All the songs from Saturdays = Youth sounded ridiculously epic.
DEAF closing party was indeed a weird atmosphere, bit of a weird vibe and a weird crowd, kinda disappointing alright to pay so much for so little but Fuck Buttons were well worth it. Perhaps Tripod might be a better venue for it next year though. Whelans and The Village just didnt cut it.
I really enjoyed NWW on Thursday. I missed Stephen O’Malley’s solo but I didn;t mind too much. I’ve seen Sunn 0))) twice and by all accounts I didn;t miss much.
Saturday I was in the Joy Gallery for E+S=B with Itaru Oki. That was a great night. The Black Egg and Meganekko were really great and E+S=B and Oki were fantastic.
Sunday – I made the mistake of not leaving the Sugar Club after Polly Fibre’s excellent performance and stuck around for White Noise, who were rubbish. The B Music Djs were good fun but I was pretty wiped out by that stage and went home.
The DEAF Closing party was a monumental organizational disaster. The choice of venue(s) was dubious from the start and every fear that people had turned out to be true.
The venues were not linked so moving from show to show in a different pub was a nightmare: tramping up and downstairs, queuing multiple times in and out of doorways, dealing with (some) bouncers with horrendous attitude problems, not being able to take your drinks from one venue to the next, the list goes on.
The Village was rammed beyond capacity. It seems that the organisers thought that punters would be happy to go to any venue at any one time as opposed to the vast majority of the crowd wanting to see to Model 500 and/or get in situ for Laurent Garnier. The bouncers had to turn people who hadn’t already been in the Village and gotten a stamp away from about 10.20/10.30 despite the fact that Model 500 weren’t scheduled to start till 10.40 and in reality didn’t come on till after 11.00.
Frustratingly for some, people who had been in the Village for hours prior to Model 500 who left for a smoke or go to another venue and were not given a Village stamp when exiting (because they weren’t told they might need one) which meant that they weren’t allowed back into Model 500.
For the people who did get to see Juan Atkins and co., it was overcrowded and unbareably hot (why don’t Irish clubs think that air conditioning is worthwhile? I presume it makes more business sense to have your clients rammed on top of one another and sweating profusely to help drink sales). The sound system in the Village seems pretty poor and didn’t give the music a real chance to impress. It was a decent performance by Model 500 but overall I’d have to say I was unimpressed.
The rumours regarding Maurizio’s illness are a real shame and hopefully he recovers soon. The organisers probably did quite well to get Rudiman to do a second set on Sunday night after his show Saturday in Twisted Pepper and his set Sunday was definitely the better of the two. It was a danceable, coherent set that kept the small crowd in attendance on the floor.
I went solely to see Model 500 and the Moritz Van Oswald Trio performances and I really don’t think it was worth the 37 euro. I recognise that there were alot of artists on bill and they all have to be paid but the organisers need to stand up and shoulder some blame for the state of how things were run, for the selection of venue and for overselling the venues themselves. Electronic music would be returned to the type of warehouse venue that it stems from, not stitching fans into awful cramped clubs with sound systems that can’t deliver.
Performances in general were lacking energy. Fuck Buttons were the best I saw – M83 sounded good…but you get the feeling it’s all just that bit too pre-programmed. As ‘wheatln2’ said – it was just like listening to the CD. Chequerboard = a laptop and a guy pressing the spacebar to play the next track. I did get to his set midway through – so maybe he played the guitar for a brief spell too. Little bit disappointing in any case.
Have acts just forgotten that there is a crowd there? It’s like they ignore their audience and have an intimate jamm between themselves on stage. And Whelans was definitely a wrong venue for the closing party. Or maybe the crowd was just totally out of place in Whelans – – as has been said – they were a Laurent Garnier overspill.
sound at m83 was indeed excellent, and whilst i thoroughly enjoyed the gig, i thought the set itself was somewhat predictable
i think ‘saturdays = youth’ is an excellent album, and of course much of the crowd would be disappointed not to hear ‘kim and jessie’ and ‘graveyard girl’, but it’s still a litte frustrating not to hear more from their more innovative previous albums
as it was, the chillingly beautiful ‘run into flowers’, ‘moonchild’ and ‘a guitar with a heart’ were highlights for me, along with pulsating encore ‘couleurs’
Once i heard what the running times were for the DEAF closing party and that Model 500 and Laurent Garnier were going to be on the same stage, I was pretty sure it was going to be yet another DEAF debacle. It was indeed a complete joke and ridiculously badly organised. When we left to go out for a smoke and couldn’t get back in, despite our stamps (due to the near riot at the door) we decided to put plan B into action and headed with the rest of the disappointed Laurent Garnier crew we were with to the Button Factory for Special Disco Version. Our decisive action couldn’t have been better rewarded, as Johnny Moy, Shitrobot and James and Pat from LCD Soundsystem gave us one of the best nights EVER. The venue was brilliant, with balloons, streamers and disco balls and the music was simply incredibly good. Add to that a great atmosphere, a not too difficult bar to get served at and an internal smoking area that you can bring your own drinks to and the night was ours. Down with DEAF from now on and up with well organised events like this in a suitable venue, with amazing djs and a much lower asking price. Vote with your wallets I say!
Yeah M83 was great on the rig in ALT, powerful stuff! Nurse with Wound were great too… Will anyone forget My Lovely Horse?!
Rob Hall on the sat tore the fisted lepper apart! Found Rudimann before him a bit loopy tho… Would have made sense to keep all the detroity stuff on one floor? Stasis visual and audio support acts were great… Didnt know anything about them before that night. Whoever played the laptop set after synth eastwood, was really deep and dub-heavy – me brain cells were rattling!
Didn’t make the closing party but from the sounds of things I’m glad… 🙂
and by alt I meant vicar st… Jaysus
Brian – Only problem is Dublin doesn’t really have any warehouse type venues to suit this does it? I’m open to suggestions.
Howley – Usuallu Chequerboard does an acoustic-based set so I’d be surprised if there was no guitar on the night
Gogs – sounds like a good night. DEAF was great apart from the closing party though.
Andy – disappointed I missed Rob Hall again but I had been burning the candle at both end s for far too long the past few weeks to take that in as well!
I understand where you’re coming from with the M83 sound being a little too perfect.
You did well to leave before Mad EP on thursday, he wasnt great, Ebola was faarrr better.
I got the fuck out of dodge for the weekend, so I didn’t catch any other DEAF stuff. I’ve been of the opinion that it’s all a bit naff since the end of the storehouse days, their heart just doesnt seem in it any more, just seems to be: ‘oh- you run a night, would you like to run it and pretend it’s part of DEAF, we might be able to get you a few free beers’
Dissapointed to hear about the closing party, was hoping it would go well, I think DEAF really needs a multi-room venue to work. But Laraunt Garnier was a bad choice. Surely they knew what kind of crowd he attracts – nothing wrong with em or anything, just not really the DEAF crowd is it? Lazy really by the promoters, Garnier = ticket sales…
Thought the line-up at deaf was great this year, was at nurse with wound, regis, hall (cheers for the comments andy!), and the banging slovak techno at the end!
Hall was the best act by a long shot… But maybe I’m biased!
At least those of you locked out of Model 500 etc managed to actually get a ticket.
i arrived in Dublin from Edinburgh having got my sister in law to reschedule her sons christening to ensure I’d make the closing party only to find that my numbskulled pals who had merrily been assuring me they’d sorted tickets these last 2 months discovered ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON that the thing had sold out.
They are now dead. At least to me!
A multi-room venue would suit better alright. And whoever decided on laurent garnier as the closing act may have sold a few tickets alright but hardly brought anything new/interesting/remotely-good-in-any-fucking-way to the the festival. On the other hand, I went to a couple of things which were all good (although i wasnt at the closin party), so big ups there.
Nialler9 – fair enough, I’m criticizing the venue without any viable solutions. There isn’t an abundance of suitable spaces around Dublin for this type of event. Although I wasn’t there myself, anyone I know who was at the DEAF party in the Guinness Storehouse a few years ago said it was an amazing venue and a brilliant night. I wonder is there a reason why that wasn’t chosen again.
Brian – The Storehouse gigs cost a bomb to put on that’s why they won’t be used again.
Not to mention a logistical nightmare, especially now that the smoking ban is here.
Pod Complex seems to be the only logical solution. Wasn’t Hard Working Class Heroes 07 at the venue a relative success?
I’d really liked the previous years expansion out of club venues… I think the only way to combat the government’s current horrific licensing laws (apart from never re-electing anyone with similar views) is to rent spaces and use them as private “membership” type events. Gets round smoking ban, closing times and you can even bring your own booze… For example, a big warehouse (cliché, I know) space would have been incredible for a big event like this – a la Sonar.