Events
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Daft Punk Live
@ The Greek Theatre – Berkeley, CA
By Robert Young
Photos by Tim Skaland
I was of the tender and impressionable age of 16 when I purchased Daft Punk’s Homework. I do not remember where I bought it or even why I bought it. I believe it was to find some kind of music to help me fit into the booming rave and DJ scene I had bonded myself to upon buying my first pair of turntables. I had sworn to become a DJ; specifically a “techno” DJ. I, like many of my pubescent constituents, sought a place to call home in our chaotic teen life. I was not a jock, a burn out, a hip-hopper or a rocker -- I was too white to hang with the Mexican kids and too Mexican to hang with the white kids. The only thing that I was sure of was that I was lost. Trying to become a DJ was the last avenue I took to finding my niche. This article is not about how Daft Punk helped me find the scene I would fit perfectly into, but it speaks to the opposite truth of how Daft Punk threw me into an abyss of social and cultural diaspora from which I have still never returned. This article, after nearly ten years, is to thank them for doing so.
When I found out Daft Punk was coming to Berkeley, California, my backyard, I was overwhelmed at the thought: Daft Punk is playing at my house. Wow. Suddenly my mind harkened back eight years. I remember putting in Homework and expecting a barrage of house beats to pound my eardrums and my status in my hometown techno scene. It did not. Instead I heard something much different from the “dull-drum” and sophomoric beats of the average house records I had begun to purchase: I heard music, and acknowledged it for the first time. On WDPK 83.7fm, the man with the French accent took me out of my little world in Sacramento, CA and relocated my senses to Paris, if only for a moment. I began to see another world of music and as such, see a universal link between myself and, excuse the cliché, the world. The next song that caught my attention was “Phoenix,” an audio-visual spectacle that is a hybrid of house thump and French high society of the 1700 and 1800s. “Fresh” took me back to the beaches of Southern California and “Around the World” set the global context through which to hear the album.
“Teachers” taught me to respect my elders and gave me my musical homework for the rest of my career. “Daftendirekt” taught me how to manipulate patterns of rhythm and sound in a way I had never felt before. I remember feeling the bass of “Oh Yeah” punch through my boom box speakers and my chest as I sat and listened, while the song “Alive” made me feel just that. I studied this album inside and out. I took apart the album cover and read every letter written inside and scrutinized every picture. The photo of the cluttered desk is eternally burned into my head: The “Hit Explosion” record with the Ohio Players on it, the Beach Boys 7”, the Playboy magazine, Iron Man comic and the KISS tour poster. Inside the album cover, the “Respect to” section turned me onto some of my most influential artists as a DJ: Black Crowes, Bob Marley, Curtis Mayfield, David Bowie, Eric B. & Rakim, George Clinton, Herbie Hancock, Issac Hayes, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, MC5 and Sun Ra. All of these people make Daft Punk who they are and I understood then that listening to Daft Punk was listening to the world’s artists all at once. After I heard Homework, I did not want to be a house DJ: I wanted to be a musician, one who used the turntables as his instrument. While I navigated my musical path primarily with turntablism, I never forgot my teachers.
Fast-forward eight years: the acid in my legs burns as I sprint up a small hill to the entrance of the Greek Theater on the UC Berkeley campus. Only seconds before I heard a roar from the 10,000 capacity crowd cheering on what had to be the arrival of Daft Punk to the stage. Sure enough, as I run into the venue late, I hear a strange robotic noise emanate from the stage: “huuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhmmmiiiin. Rooooooowwwwwbaaaaaauuuggghhht!” I make my final sprint to the outdoor arena and into total darkness. The noise comes again. This time, in the center of the stage I see an odd, smoke-cluttered light cast down on the two daft punks, in full robotics, standing in the center of a giant pyramid. The words come faster and faster; so do the lights illuminating the duo’s position on stage. The crowd grows louder. Finally, the words become clear: HUMAN. ROBOT. HUMAN. ROBOT. ROCK. A heart-stopping kick drum comes in on time. The lights from the stage blare to reveal four stories of fans towering above me; we all scream along to Daft Punk’s lead song, “Robot Rock”.
The beat stops and more red and black words fill the screen behind them: “Touch it, bring it, paid”…we all recognize this as the Busta Rhymes’ sampled version of Daft Punk’s, “Technologic”. The group gives the Busta Rhymes version a once over and reclaims their beat, as red shades blast from their pyramid and cast an ominous landscape around the Greek Theater. “Technologic’s” grim, powder red, Martian landscapes suddenly give way to towers of cool white and blue. The pyramid’s base erupts into light as the giant L.E.D. screen showers the audience with images of white pyramids. Samples of “Too Long” mix into the beat: “I know ya need it/ I need it too/ I know ya need it/ it’s good for you”. The pyramid erupts into solid white light and is quickly broken apart by darkness.
ACT 2:
An ominous twang screeches from the speakers as lasers on the pyramid cut through the crowd in a sort of scanning manner. The robotic twang becomes clearer as the infamous Daft Punk build up leads the crowd to a mix version of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Face to Face.” It is here that the supreme beings show what their vessel can truly do. In the blackness of the night the scanning lasers are replaced by Atari/Vextrex wire frame graphics of pyramid-riddled landscapes; the giant grid of light around the duo shower down harsh yellows on beat. The mood changes and so does the beat as the breakdown of the song yields soft blue stars spotted around a black background. I look up and see all of my 9,999 fellow humans singing the chorus to “One More Time” and dancing along. Instantly, I am taken to the distant planet where Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555 takes place, and I am one of those blue alien creatures of rhythm. I feel as though I am not in California anymore, but in space traveling at the speed of an L.E.D. screen. We are all being transported to another star as the amazing guitar solo from “Aerodynamic” cuts our celebration short. The L.E.D. screen jumps to hyperspace a’la Star Wars. We are dancing through hyperspace and our pilots stare down at us in approval. We are brought back into our material realm as the screeching noise of “Rollin’ & Scratchin’ ” cuts into our auditory canals and mix with the phrase “prime time of your life”.
The concert continues and as “Around the World” is mixed in with “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and another sono-dynamic beat, I realize that the group’s catalogue mix is an attempt to bridge time, space and the collective thought of the audience. All at once I am in France, California and the outskirts of our solar system. I am 23 and I am 16 all at once. I have come to this show alone, yet I feel connected to everyone…all at once. My ideas were confirmed during one of the most amazing encores I have yet seen in my life.
Encore:
The audience waits in the breezy, dark East Bay night and finally, the tired screams of begging and pleading pay off after what seems like a lifetime. The robotic words “Human” again cut the darkness along with images of humanity in all of its forms: man woman child, black, white, Asian; everyone is shown on the pyramid. These images are followed by massive images of our nervous and skeletal systems obviously aimed to break down our humanity down to its truest essence: our soul. A snare drum roll flares to what is to be the greatest of all Daft Punk build-ups. On beat, a beautiful female voice singing the words “HUMAN” and “TOGETHER” alternate on the giant L.E.D. screen.
The crowd begins to cheer as one massive human body. The lights cut leaving the stadium yet again in darkness. The drum roll and the words continue as two red lasers shoot from the base of the pyramid and zig-zag through the light grid, piercing the darkness. The beams make their way to their point of origin and proceed up to the center of the pyramid that cradles the two musicians. Blackness. The drum roll builds until the speakers can no longer bare it and then…Boom…the kick of the bass drum blasts the red beam into the bodies of the two daft punks. The outlines of their suits and the pyramid are fiery neon red. The crowd erupts in awe. “Together” “You just got me feelin’ so free/ I wanna celebrate/ Celabrate and dance for free/ One more time” “Together”… We all go numb as these words caress our collective mind over and over and the soft yellow stars on the stage swirl around Guy and Thomas. Their songs speak of theory the likes of Russian scholar Lev Manovich, albeit with much fewer and more universal words and a much better beat. They speak to the way in which technology cannot only articulate humanity, but how technology can excel humanity. These half human/ half robot beings have magnified our own personal humanity tonight with the right mix of “HUMAN” and “ROBOT”.
All those years ago, Daft Punk made me realize that we as human beings do not belong to any one place in the world at any one time, we belong to the entire world, all at once. This lesson not only helped me live through high school; it helped me live my life…Tonight, I understood this truth more than ever before. So, to Guy-Manuel & Thomas, as a representative of humanity I say to you both, merci beaucoup.
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