David Vendetta @ Forum de Beyrouth (30-11-2007)

by **lebanese_raver** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:09 pm

^ oh god i missed "solee - impressed"

on a good sound system mmmmmmmmm, yalla im glad u guys did well... sorry i missed it, i had 2 repeat my EEE's anyway i will be there for sure on ur next After-hours.

by **jackbeans** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 10:39 pm

DAVID VENDETTA LIVE AT FORUM DE BEYROUTH - FRI. 30 NOV. 2007

Venue

As Dio. said clearly, the place looked like some "mega" club packed to the max. The big stage with the "V"s looked good and the decks were at the center making the whole venue look great. The bar hence could have been placed in a wiser way and not in almost the center of gravity.
Access to the bar was one main issue later on.
Good partitioning with the VIP sections being a few feet higher than ground level on the left and right wings.

Light-Sound

Lighting was good with two green lasers on both sides of the stage and all kind direct and indirect lighting diffusing colorful shapes and waves. Decoration was correct as well. Strobs although used irregularly were also correct.

Sound system was efficient only in the first half of the venue. The second half wasn't clearly covered and "blind spots" were present especially on the edges. Much more could have been installed in terms of power since the organizers should have expected such a huge volume of crowd.
In addition lower pitches were sometimes distorting higher ones.
Sound repartition was poor. This was noticeable especially in the VIP section.
A bigger effort should have been made. Power was lacking unless you were standing/sitting in the first upper half of the venue.

One considerable effort was made concerning the VJ. Interesting and very well synchronized with music.

Organization-Management

Almost no queues at the entrance. Good organization in terms of searching at door and careful ticket tearing (for collectors :-)

).
Hence the bar was one other story: bartenders were arrogant, slow, impolite and barely responding to one's request. It took on average at peak time 20 to 30 minutes getting one simple drink.
Some were simply looking at you and asking you to wait for some other to serve you. All of them playing with your nerves and slowly killing the thirst in you. So arrogant and unacceptable especially in a big event such as this one.

Restrooms on another hand were also one alarming issue: one "wet" journey to hell in order to take one innocent piss. Hygiene was one alarming issue to be taken into consideration by all in future gigs.
Getting worse and worse, time after time.

Crowd

Looking at the crowd that night brought back some very old memories:
The "Beat Machine" crowd in the early 90's as some of the older folks here recall.
As a matter of fact, I was expecting this kind of crowd but was totally unaware of the huge impact that substance has on these young teenagers... Surprising and shameful.
All in all the crowd was a mixture of a minority of true electronic lovers and a majority of the usual, casual crowd who knows nothing of electronic music other than Tiesto (who by the way i have so much respect for) and some probably thinking that David Vendetta's was about to sing...

DJ Sets

It isn't even worth discussing the warmup DJ who had nothing of a warmup; playing cheesy dance music left and right keeping the crowd vibrant but not the right kind of crowd.

Then came David Vendetta.....
Opening up his set with his monstrous melancholic hit accompanied by the violinist Micah, it looked like the night will be one hell of a night.
Until the MC came, "clown of the night", insisting through the night, destroying every bit of it. Humping and jumping, rapping, dancing and destroying every track played with his incoherent and dull interferences, he was absolutely one painful experience.

On another hand, the violin concept was an interesting on for one or two tracks max. Instead it became a punishment for all interfering in almost every track, tearing apart every single track played that night, brilliant ones such as "Air Cond." and "Camino Del Sol".

Rachel Starr: a true lady but absolutely not as expected. Giving a very medium performance, sometimes not well synchronized with the music, she could have been better if she only concentrated on fewer specific tracks. My highlight of the night: "till there was you" unfortunately not interpreted with Gabriel & Dresden remix version.
Just like Dio., i would have preferred this latter version than the one played that night. Rachel was good but not too good.

What about Vendetta's performance? Very interesting to mention that skills, techniques, mixing were clumsy. Surprisingly, he played almost half of his albums with few good house tunes unfortunately destroyed by his army: the violinist and his MC.
Abrupt mixing, skipping and predictable, amateur sound and noise effects were noticeable. No mashups or whatsoever were made.
David was at his lowest peak that night, intentionally or unintentionally.

Thank God as Dio., said the afterhours set was good.
Ronin and Nesta were brilliant. Excellent Leb. house DJs. Raising the level of the night a little. Very good set.

All in all, Friday night was no gig to almost all of us. It was a concert, a show, or even worse, a circus.

If ones takes a listen to David Vendetta's set Live at INOX Festival in Toulouse earlier this summer, one sure thing can be stated:
David Vendetta came to Beirut thinking that it is one third-world country such as Vietnam who has no scene or whatsoever and played accordingly.
As a matter of fact, David made fun of us, mocked us brilliantly...

+ Nice venue
+ Good organization at the door
+ Good lighting & VJ
+ Acceptable Rachel Starr
+ Leb DJs saved the night

+ Catastrophic service at the bar
+ Catastrophic hygiene in restrooms
+ Disastrous performance for David Vendetta
+ Circus

04/10
MEDIOCRE