Review: Now Wave @ The Apollo with Caribou and Battles

Now Wave are re-inventing the era of late-night raves; tonight with a trans-Atlantic music mash-up of local producers and two live acts from the US and Canada.

Jayne Robinson

Date published: 6th Jun 2011

When: 4th June 2011

Reviewed by: Miz DeShannon

Now Wave are re-inventing the era of late-night raves; tonight with a trans-Atlantic music mash-up of local producers and two live acts from the US and Canada. It's not a new way of thinking, having DJs early on and live acts in the early hours, but Now Wave have, judging by tonight's production, perfected the art of doing these things properly. Albeit in a slightly middle class trendy student kinda way, but the crowd didn't consist entirely the bun-on-head rolled-up-pants brigade. And even the cab drivers were perplexed at the fact that a show was on at Manchester's iconic Apollo venue post-11pm.

Showing pretty bad form, Actress didn't show up for his DJ set. Stuff him. It gave everyone more of an opportunity to listen to a longer set from Starslinger, a local producer playing his heavy bass driven digital music from under his floppy hair via a laptop, with an array of buttons and things to mess around with. “How can you DJ with no headphones?” He's not a DJ, he's a producer - that's how. Apparently there's a difference when they perform.

Nearly midnight, and Battles emerge to blast out over an hour of math rock dance noise. With super-fast drumming, a ridiculously high-set crash cymbal, crazy synth sounds and guest vocals from the likes of Gary Numan on video screen, they revolved around the visual side of performance. There's no huge variety in each track, so I guess listening to their work at home could just turn into wall of noise, but truly a great live act.

Pearson Sound filled in for mid-act dancing. In situ centre stage, the production started showing through. Low level back lighting, lazers firing into the crowd, strobes, and a great engineer to run it made one guy stood on a roll-on-roll-off stage block look more amazing than you'd ever imagine.

And finally, Caribou. The Canadian mathematician-turned-producer performs ten years worth of what's branded as electronic psych pop material with a live band. It gets a little draining discovering new genres every two seconds - the sound is basically fast experimental rock but somewhat dancier and more melodic than Battles. Again there was amazing production, lighting up the whole of the Apollo's art deco interior and making for a pretty awesome show.

So yeah, Now Wave seem to have nailed it. A great selection of acts, good timings for people wanting early hours drinking then partying, and they actually bothered themselves with how the whole thing was going to look. Gigs are about the experience, some people forget that and just shove famous acts on stage. Go to a Now Wave show and re-accustom yourself with the reality.