Pemberton Festival: Chromeo & Booka Shade
July 26, 2008
I spent a large part of last night in the Bacardi B-Live tent listening to half a dozen world class DJs play medleys, old hits and monster techno jams for thousands of frenzied fans. The vibe in the tent was really enthusiastic - I showed up just before Chromeo took the stage about twenty minutes late and everyone was chanting Chromeo's intro song and screaming for them to come on stage. The schedule advertised a DJ set but instead, Chromeo put on a live performance of songs from their album ***. Everyone knew ALL the lyrics and was giving the Montreal duo a lot of love. At one point while I was in the media row, security came by to double-check everyone's access and spotted a misplaced VIP who goes by the name Elisha Cuthbert - she was promptly escorted back into the general crowd area.
A few sets after Chromeo, I went back to check out Frankfurt purveyors of electrohouse Booka Shade, who are at the festival along with Get Physical label co-founders M.A.N.D.Y. Anyone who thought that all they were gonna get was a standard DJ set from the duo must have been pleasantly surprised when they found out that the duo would in fact be performing original material from their albums as artists, including
the hit Body Language and Numbers. They had a live electronic drumkit that took a beating for over an hour, plus they added layers of vocals (some vocoded, some not), a stellar light show and lots of crowd interaction.
