The Orb in Orlando?

July 15,1997

I don't know how auspicious it was for The Orb's Dr. LX Paterson and recent addition Andy Hughes to start their U.S. tour in the hallowed space that is Tsunami Beach Club, resplendent as it is in its role as some sort of suburban shopping mall (and I mean suburban - the place is miles away) Zuma Beach refugee, faux palm trees and all. It seemed to lack something without the large-chested girls in string bikinis.

Ensconced beneath a metal pyramid-like structure (New Age or what?), the two protagonists tried to address what must be one of the great conundrums of modern times - how do you create a visually interesting "live" concert experience with electronic music that has as its basis prerecorded samples? Well, you throw up a structure around your samplers and mixers, flash up lots of other-world images (the fake (?) photos of the dissected, bloated "alien" seemed to have a starring role), and use that old standby. Yes, you guessed it...flashing lights. I don't want to sound too facetious - what else do you do?

The Orb, promoting their latest release, "Orblivion," produce a particularly overwrought style of Trance music that I found more suited to the tropical beaches of Goa and Ko Phan-Gan (both are famous venues for Rave parties) under the full moon than the faux palm trees of Tsunami Beach. Almost anti-climactic, the music moved at a sometimes somnambulistic pace, and the butt-high wide pants and Oakley sunglasses brigade were keen to dance, taking every vaguely upbeat opportunity to throw their bodies around. But this is chill-out zone music - that place you go after a frenetic night's sweating at 150 beats per second to mellow out and "come down" off the high - and I don't mean drug-induced. So the (pitifully few) audience members chatted to friends, drank beer and smoked cigarettes, the music "happening" in the background, ebbing and waning in mellifluous flows. It would have been a beautiful thing on that beach in Goa, but, well, call me fussy, but ambience is (almost) everything, and this just was not the place to be.

Peter Lewis
A true African-American, Peter has led a peripatetic lifestle, and after graduating from UCF with a film degree, he is pondering life as another wannabe, devoting his time to working on a novel, his thesis film, a suntan and the dubious benefits of Rogaine.