The Crystal Method
DV8, Seattle - Sunday, March 8, 1998
This was the first opportunity so far this year to actually get out and review a show, and what better occasion than when The Crystal Method came to town.
Appearing at Seattle's DV8 club to a sold out all ages audience Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan took to the stage to a deafening welcome before breaking into a soul stirring performance.
Thanks in part to much support by Marco Collins, dj for Seattle's The End radio station, the duo have built quite the following here in guitar town USA and could easily have filled the smaller of Seattle's two arenas, but for now large dance clubs remain the venues of choice for most electronic artists.
Partway through the show I made my way back to the lighting desk to see the stage head on and was blown away by what the lights were doing in time to the music. Stretching from one side of the stage to the other behind the band they were producing colour combinations I don't think I've ever seen before. To say that what they were doing complimented the music could be the understatement of the year.
Responsible for producing such a marvelous spectacle is Lawrence Upton, who is currently the lighting designer for Marilyn Manson, and for several minutes I watched as he manipulated the ridiculously expensive looking desk with consumate professionalism, producing effects that worked exactly in time with what was coming from the stage.
Nothing sequenced and left to it's own devices at this show, on or off the stage. Instead a constant stream of barely restrained chaotic events that came together to produce one of the best shows a lover of instrumental electronic dance music could ever wish to attend.
