a reminiscence.
a little perambulation down memory lane.
in 1992 and 1993 i found myself spending a lot of time going back and forth between new york and western europe.
and most of the time that i spent in europe at that point was performing at raves and in clubs.
sometimes the experiences were fantastic and exciting, and other times the experiences were, uh, egregiously depressing.
the first time that i went to belgium was in 1992, or so i believe.
i had been booked to perform in 3 clubs in one night.
the way it worked back then(and this was pretty standard)is that i would get picked up from my hotel at 11pm. play a first show at midnight in one club. a second show at 2a.m in a second club.
and then a 3rd show at 4 or 5 a.m in another club.
at this point i had never been to belgium, but ‘go’ had been a sort of hit there and i was excited to see the belgian club scene.
the first club…well, i’m not under-exaggerating when i say that there were fewer than 10 people there. so i performed. and the 8 or 9 people in the club sat at the edge of the dance floor and watched. they might’ve clapped at some point. no, in hindsight they didn’t. i think that my manager, eric,
clapped. that was nice of him.
then back into the car and onto the second club. this time there were maybe 15 people in the club. again, i’m not under-exaggerating. the clubs were empty. i have such a distinct memory of the promoter saying, ‘i don’t understand it, in the old days you could tour for 2 years with just one hit single.’
so i performed for the 15(or 12. or 17)people in the second club. again, no clapping except for eric.
then back into the car for the drive to the third club, where, amazingly, there were people!
maybe 100 or so people. they might’ve been relatively disinterested in my performance and they might’ve been trying to order drinks while i performed and they might’ve had no enthusiasm for my music, but at least i was performing to an audience and not just to an empty dancefloor.
then it was back into the car at 6 a.m and back to the hotel.
i need to point out that every other time i’ve been back to belgium since then has been wonderful(well, the cherry moon in 1995 was kind of odd…playing on a quasi-staircase covered in water), and belgium really is one of my favorite places in europe.
but this first trip was rough.
i used to have the old adage(s)- ‘never trust a dj who doesn’t dance’, and ‘never trust a musician who doesn’t sweat’, and now i’ll add, ‘never trust a musician who hasn’t played to a club with fewer than 10 patrons’.
maybe next time i’ll reminisce about a brief rave tour of the uk in 1993 that began with a show in front of 9 year olds who were at an ‘all ages’ rave.
sweet memories…
-moby
