Vitalic at The Brighton Coalition 18.03.10

Vitalic or Pascal Arbez (as his Mum would call him) is a man who likes to bide his time. With a gap of four years between his first and second albums and a similar period since his last performance in Brighton, his fans have gotten used to waiting for him. Tonight's performance is, therefore, a surprise as he boards the stage at the remarkably early time of 9.15pm.

Shielded by an impressive array of mixing desks and effects equipment hooked up to his laptop he waits for Willerby's last track to fade away. A drum roll rattles out of the speakers, a kick punches it's way through, the bone shattering bass line rolls in and it's all systems GO! Vitalic churns through hits from both 'OK Cowboy' and 'Flashmob' mixing each track together, introducing new themes and layers with the twist of a knob and the cross of a fader. Each track is tweaked making the live experience quite unlike the material on record, at each stage he manages to throw something new into the mix, always increasing the intensity. The entire set feels like it's ascending, building in ferocity so consistently that each climax is immediately smothered with the introduction of an even heavier kick drum and an even more frantic cymbal scatter.



It's more like seeing an electro DJ set circa 2007 than a live performance because it's so tight. Percussion sampled live is set out in 4/4 patterns, buzzsaw synths are layered together with a techno style progression and here and there the odd snippet of female vocal is littered. Predictably 'La Rock 01' is the hit of the night with the crowd (who have certainly done their bit to get into the mood for it so early) raising their hands into the air. The newly installed lights, lasers and smoke machines do an impressive job of making it look like 3am in the morning rather than the 10pm that it actually is. Confusion arises when Vitalic cuts the track short and slams straight into 'Galvanise' by Chemical Brothers which he then mixes back into 'La Rock 01' after a minute or so to huge appreciation from the crowd who are throwing themselves up and down by this point.

It's amazing how truly up-for-it the audience are. They've somehow managed to ignore their body clock which is repeatedly notifying the brain that it's way too early for this kind of thing, extra respect goes to the guy asking for pills considering that when it all wraps up at 10.30pm he'll still have half an hour to wait until the clubs open. He was probably coming up on the bus ride home, although, thanks to Vitalic's performance tonight he won't be the only one feeling slightly euphoric as they leave the Coalition.

Thanks to Mike at The Recommender for the awesome photos.

Vitalic - Poison Lips on Spotify