Photo: Daniel Pratley
Manchester International Festival is as much about grand gestures as innovative and groundbreaking performances. Tonight, Manchester Central (formerly the G-MEX) is awash with expectant clubbers, awaiting Todd Graft’s mind bending visuals and a star-studded line up to boot. It’s a mammoth task, a mammoth stage with a monster screen (the biggest digital screen in the world), and as with all things heavyweight, us mugs bear the cost, all £40 of it! To balance the bitterness the backdrop is absurdly extravagant, stretching from floor to ceiling, a digital-scape that is unrivalled and frankly fucking amazing.
First up are the Unabombers who open to a barren flock scattered deep against the arches of the GMEX. It’s the wrong time, wrong place and in hindsight there’s a couple of guys that could have swapped places, yet how were we to know these forgettable moments would almost highlight the night. Erol Alkan and Richard Norris, however, aren’t to be ignored, their pastoral flourishes are ultimately grounded in 60’s pop, yet somehow they manage to introduce some welcome electro pulses. It’s dark, trippy and defines what Alkan is all about - brilliance in the face of adversity.
Now, we aren’t no artful dodgers, but we do expect a little stagecraft decorum, something DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist have generously avoided. Once luminary masters, these two ageing dinosaurs are anything but luminary tonight, choosing instead to crush any coherence the night was generating by constantly breaking beats down into messy, discordant, un-danceable segments. Manchester, God bless you, are far from shy in showing appreciation, and tonight is no exception, after little over an hour the pantomime hiss and boo of dancers lethargy is like music to our ears. When Shadow shamefully announces we’re all too fucked to get it (the pompous tit)…it’s enough to tip us out, remaining for the last splurge of dissonance we exit, and wave goodbye to a massive disappointment, Shadow, you’ve done Manchester International Festival a massive disservice.
