Chicane — Live @ Astoria Theatre

I recently stumbled upon a recording of Nick from Chicane’s performance, which was filmed in the summer of 2000, apparently for a Japanese audience. For twenty years, I listened to another epic Nick concert at the Palladium club (also in 2000) on MP3 and could only imagine what was happening on stage. The video from London’s Astoria gave me a better understanding. It’s pretty much the same setup: a live guitarist, a live percussionist, Nick on the synthesiser, Tomski at the mixer—it was with his participation that powerful progressive trance remixes of Saltwater and Don’t give up were recorded.

Bonuses of this performance: small experimental inserts in the tracks, a real flautist, and Justine Suissa on vocals, who seems unable to sing to here, in her own songs (Autumn Tactics) and especially in Moya Brennan’s parts (Saltwater). Even though she sang well and many times for Armin. A minor observation: compared to Palladium, where the crowd goes wild, here the dance floor is filled with a completely inert crowd that seems to have come to drink beer and watch the musicians. The crowd is sophisticated and doesn’t know what they’ll be dancing to in ten years’ time.