Firecracker party last night at Hammerstein Ballroom, organized by Live Nation, was purely disastrous. I could not believe my ears. The sound was hollow, disproportional to the space, with a buzzy base and an echo to top it off. It sounded as if entire mid range was missing. Treble and base, my ears were almost bleeding.
Although the space was not filled to capacity, there were about 1,500 people there. Beautiful, exciting, young crowd. And they were barely dancing. Talking yes, walking around as well, smoking like crazy outside but not dancing. Why? Because the sound made their ears bleed as well, I saw plenty of people covering their ears. The DJs knew it too and played one uninspiring set after another. I arrived around 12 and I can't even tell you who was playing at the moment. The DJ booth was set very high and the light next to the stage was blinding, impossible to recognize the person playing. Well at least he was playing records, because I surely heard it skip twice before he fixed it and even though that is a nightmare for any DJ, it was comforting to hear a record skip. The only reason I recognised Steve Lawler was because he played exactly the same set he played for Radio 1 Essential Mix show hosted by Pete Tong in early May.
Lawler has not been in NYC since last August and he was playing the mix I downloaded from alldj.org and have been playing nonstop since then. Pure shame at $100 charge at the door. I left before Calderone even went on, because I just couldn't take it anymore and a very trustworthy source tells me it was a snooze fest. I will never attend another Live Nation event and I don't care if it's my favorite singer, if Live Nation is anywhere near it, I am not going. We really should have demanded our money back, because if you are going to charge people $100 in the middle of a worst recession you have to make us feel as if we are in Ibiza.
Oh yeah, and the dancers were terrible, very strange antics on the stage except for the girls. The girls were sexy, at some point even performing very beautiful drawn out ballet moves. The mascots (see pictures), moved in a very bizarre and vulgar fashion.
If club goers continue to swallow these half cooked productions and not voice their opinions we will keep getting the same crap. So if you were as disgusted by last night's performance as I was, I suggest you bombard the DJs on MySpace and Live Nation with emails describing exactly how you felt.
Fatboy Slim could teach Live Nation a few lessons, the crowd was on fire for 3 hours. The sound was beyond perfection and the light show was brilliant, $40 entrance by the way.
Even though I bought my ticket at the cheapest price ($33) for Firecracker, weeks in advance, when I left the place I felt raped. I am very serious and I don't use this term lightly.
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