THE SECOND ROOM:
Domestic, hallowed be thy name!

This is “Noga Records Week” here at Tokyo Psy-Blog ahead of the TPE “Spaced Out” party this Saturday at Ariake Differ.

But first, a short flashback to Differ last Saturday night and the best live set I’ve heard this year, especially at Differ Ariake. Funny thing is, it was not according to plan. By the providence of divine screw-up, about 400 of us got an extra long dose of the Domestic live experience – 90 minutes – and it was righteous to the point of pure rapture.

Whatever frustrations there were backstage as Ido Ophir kept signaling for a couple more tracks and kept on blasting that superb Domestic sound can be comfortably replaced in the knowledge that the crowd on hand will never forget this one. Give this man 90 minutes every time, seriously. (Plus, four out of the five girls I asked think that Ido is now sexier than Astrix, and that is saying something. That's Domestic on the left and Timelock on the right, enjoying the last minutes of the party.)

There wasn’t enough time in the end for any kind of Goblin closing DJ set, which Sirius Records has built into kind of a tradition when Udi comes over. But there really wasn’t enough time before Domestic ran 30 minutes over. Math primer: Tokage played the last 15 minutes.

At the root of this are the problems facing every party organizer second-tier and below.

Sirius Records, ranked about #5 among Tokyo area psy-trance organizers and labels, booked Psysex, Timelock and Domestic for its “Sirius Generation” gig, which started at 11 p.m. and was set to end at 6 a.m. Factored into the timetable were DJ sets by Miki, Goblin (Psysex) and label head Tokage.

Sounds good so far, but let’s do some more math: 7 hours minus 3 live acts leaves only 4 hours for 3 DJ sets, assuming the party actually starts on time and there no delays in between. Which are two pretty big assumptions.

So, Miki played for a bit to open, then Tokage played for a bit. Timelock played a killer full-on set that started around 1:30 a.m. and finished roughly on time. But before Psysex started – and again after he finished – the stage crew needed at least 10 minutes to reconfigure the live stage, during which time Tokage got up and played a few tracks. It’s easy to see how this can snowball a timetable.

But how else is it to be done? Apparently, it is cost-prohibitive in an already risky venture to run the parties until 7 a.m. And with the norm being that the crowd won’t start streaming in until about 12:30, you’ve got less than five and a half hours to work with. What are you gonna’ do? You need three big live acts to justify the outrageous door prices these days at venues the size of Differ Ariake. Did anybody else notice the price slipped up another 500 yen?

The one thing that Tokage and Sirius can really be proud of is their decision to go hog-wild on the sound and visuals on this event, because it made the payoff possible for everyone on that dance floor during those 90 minutes. Righteous to the point of rapture. That was a special treat!