Sunday Music: Seeing Underworld Live

When my wife started freaking out about a limited date Underworld tour in the US, I knew we'd be going. I didn't really know the group, but we are very good at evangelizing music to each other, and like with so many things, seeing and experiencing it live is the best way to get a person into something.

But, before you get into it, you have to make fun of it. At least a little. We both do this, for the record.

So, Underworld. What did I know about them when she pitched it? First thought was - dance, four-on-the-floor, not techno but, not sure what Oakenfeld-y place to place them? I figured they were one of the groups my buddy Jim showed me (and genuinely got me to appreciate) when we were in college. I've never been an electronic music superfan, but I'm down to casually listen and even critically think about why so many other people love them.

Then I found out our buddy Kenny loves them too. Like, "Guys, I have this live version of a song somebody caught on their phone in 2004, and I have it saved on my phone so I can't share it except directly with you, so - just come listen to it in my car, it's the best" level of love. I appreciate that passion. I will try anything if somebody is passionate like that.*

My wife had tickets to see them in February or March of 2020. You know, right when the pandemic cancelled said tickets. They were one of her missed shows like that. Conveniently, on this tour, they were going to do a tour stop in Denver, and seeing as her brother, Braunsen, is out there, I said, "let's do it" and she booked the tickets, got the flights, etc. etc.

Now, perhaps unfairly, or less-than charitably, but - remember that you have to make fun of it part? Because my wife and Kenny were really into it, I started jokingly saying I was going to a goth rave. They're not goth, per se. At all. But, they have some mutual goth-esque appreciations and I liked how annoyed they were when I said it so I kept saying it.

In the time leading up to the show I learned that, A. Braunsen was also a fan, B. I sort of remembered the song Braunsen told me he knew, "Born Slippy (Nuxx)" from its spot in Trainspotting (and on the soundtrack), and C. that they definitely weren't goth, but were part of rave culture, and seeing as I wasn't really into either of those things, I continued to be very amused by telling more and more people, "Oh, I'll be gone that weekend, my wife and my brother in law are taking me to some goth rave in Denver."

"You know they're not goth, right?" "I don't know, you and Kenny both like them, so - are you sure they’re not? They have Under in their name, that sounds pretty goth…"

At our local mall here in PA, we had a Panda Express in the food court, and a Tasty Chinese Buffet on the outer perimeter. We kind of knew that PE was a little more McDonalds style, and TCB was probably a bit more authentic, if only because it wasn't staffed by high school kids we knew, and you had to either enter from the parking lot, or go down a very sketchy corridor to get into a side door.

I remember going on a church/youth-group type trip to New York City, and having somebody take us to a "real" Chinese restaurant. I remember asking, "Like TCB, not PE, right?" and being told, "No. I said real. You'll see."

So we went, a million things got put on the table, and I saw. Some "better than General Tsao" dish that definitely didn't taste like the sweet and tangy sauce I had come to love melted my sinuses that night. Some hints of orange in a special chicken made me literally go "wow” when I tasted it.

Turns out, there's more to culinary experiences than the regional mall. Being a teenager is wild. You’re constantly learning all sorts of stuff like this if you’re willing to experiment.

Your town has a mall, a church, a Little League field, and all sorts of funny versions of things, and you and your friends hang out in and around them, but then you leave town and there are all sorts of other details you'd never considered to find out about. It includes going to big cities and getting cultured. In other cases, it includes going to smaller towns and realizing they only had a PE and no TCB (can you even imagine?!), and making fun of them.

Music is no different. Scenes form around groups. Some of it travels well. Some of it doesn't. Some of it is corporate and scalable, some of it's not. But you can't find out unless somebody takes you there. The best experiences show up when the person taking you says, "No. I said real. You'll see."

My generic problem with the electronic music of my youth, when techno was going to take over the world in the 90s because, I don't know, computers I guess, and the universal way to mock it was to do the Night at the Roxbury head nod, was I got bored listening to it. At the time, I listened to a lot of punk bands. But not just punk. I fell in love with metal first, and then hardcore, and for whatever reason I got obsessed with dancehall reggae, and old school hip hop, and then contemporary underground hip hop, and some of the mainstream rap because it was all so good at that time, and - all that stuff had diversity within it.

I could never hear the diversity in electronic music. My buddy Jim, in college, helped change my thinking about it a few years later, but at the time, I was a "I kind of listen to everything but THAT" person. And, again, out of boredom. Not out of anything critical in some articulated sense.

Somebody once explained how hip hop sounds like driving through the city with your windows rolled down. You heard snippets of what the city was listening to - a car radio there, a TV through an open window there, street banter on one corner, a busker on another, etc. It's always made sense to me. Part of my draw to the entire genre is how it plays on my ADHD like that.**

Dance music always sounded like a more isolated, less ADHD-oriented experience to me. Electronic music made me think of headphones and drugs that I wasn't interested in taking. I thought this 2x the heart rate music probably was really great to drift in and out of consciousness to. It wasn't sexy or dangerous. It was - embryonic, but on speed?

That's how teenage me thought about dance, EDM, house, et al. My ADHD was bored because I didn't take the drugs or want to have something on that felt so repetitious. It's, actually, still not my thing, as you can probably tell. But I learned a lot about what I appreciate in the genre. Mostly, how incomplete my understanding was, and then how much I enjoy filling in all those gaps.

We hopped out of the Uber and got in line for the show, and within minutes my wife pointed out, "Look, no goth people!" to which I responded "Nope, right there" you already knew I'd find at least one, "goth rave!" We all laughed. I proceeded to explain to her and her brother that I really had finally looked the band up, in earnest, that morning, and could now say "They're not goth at all, they're dance and techno with atmospheric and progressive elements, and some seriously trippy stream of consciousness lyrics."

"Stop making fun of me," was uttered. "I stopped, I am taking this seriously. Now, at least" was declared. "Not sure yet," was retorted.

We found a great spot to watch the night and the crowd unfold. Mostly because we went to the bar first. The bar was next to a special "friends of the band" seating area and an Americans With Disability Act section, all roped off. It was off to the side of the stage and had a pretty great view with a slightly elevated vantage point. This is an important detail when you have a short wife.

While she was unconvinced of the spot at first, Braunsen and I were decidedly entertained by the guy with a big gulp of soda in the motorized wheel chair who was the ADA section bouncer. And not in any mean way. This guy scooting around and wagging his finger was - if you gave him a TV show, I'd watch it. Absolute professional. Wildly entertaining and part of the concert going experience you can't get from home.

As if the line wasn't enough information, the room was full of mostly people in their 50s and older (the group is actually in their late 60s as I found out, so this as an enduring act, I LOVE a detail like that), and there were tons of random kids mixed in (the show was 16 and up), and then us in the inbetween ages. The ratio of goths to run of the mill alternative music fans was decisively 5% to 95%. "See?" "Yeah, I KNOW. It was a joke!"

The group came on, on time, no opener, and between the lights dimming, the fog entering the hall, the stage lights kicking in, and the bass drum pulsing, it was a lot. Sensory overload a lot. In a very cool way. In a very, in the EDM womb way. I was right about needing to experience that live.

They opened with new stuff. I didn't know that it was new stuff. But, my wife told me. In a loud room whisper shout. I love that part about concerts. The crowd was vibing though. It wasn't the dreaded new stuff feeling, it was the "I listen to this at work and my coworkers have no idea" energy.

Leading up to the show, she had kept saying she hoped they'd play "Low Burn" too. That's apparently one of her all time favorite songs by them. When they pulled it out third, I thought her head was going to explode. And, she wasn't alone either. There was a visible ripple in the crowd when they pulled that one out. I loved the inside scoop of them not normally playing the song out live so I could see the reaction.

Because we had the ADA section in front of us, which - there's a bring a friend hack to this, you have the wheelchair or cane users with these incredible seats, almost always accompanied by a friend without a disability (I am struggling for the language here, correct me, please, I mean this more in the heartwarming sense and less in the "could be an episode of Curb” sense) - made for perfect crowd-in-crowd. You could see their faces, the stage, and an ocean of bodies on the main floor in front of us, with clear line of sight.

By a few songs in, I already had some crazy observations I was starting to repeat to myself. There would be no on the spot note taking for this. For starters, looking around I realized people knew the words to songs. Like, ALL the words to songs. Those weird stream of consciousness lyrics were nothing to me - but I was seeing people buzz along to phrases like "Mmm Skyscraper, I love you" passionately.***

Another thing I noticed was the language of their music. I knew different songs would have different kick drums, but at kick you in the chest volume levels, the choices become that much more apparent. One song is an open palm push, another is a balled fist punch. The same types of variations show up in the breathy, synthy atmospheric noises - there's lighter and heavier versions you can feel in the room, and you already know how the leads and subs work. It's like standing on a corner and feeling a massive fire truck fly past you, inches away, with or without the siren blaring.

The dynamics revelation was obvious in retrospect but still surprising in the moment. I always took the lack of overall dynamics in electronic music as one of my boredom factors. It's just always loud feeling to me. Rock, and especially say, The Pixies, perfected the loud-soft-loud variation. Underworld doesn't really play that game. It is all loud, all the time, but for what they lack in decibel variations they make up for in the spectrum of frequency ranges and sonic textures they're exploring.

I've written about Depeche Mode before, and how these other places they're playing with music, that aren't based on dynamics and rhythm, where I usually get so much joy, are really, really cool to hear someone explore. This is what Jim tried to explain to me years ago. Experiencing it live, something he certainly had done way more of than me, makes all the difference.

The show ended. They did 2 sets with a brief intermission and performed for a solid 3 hours if not closer to 4. The people around us, that I could see their faces afterwards, were - elated? Just pure joy, and sweat. And my wife was already checking her health stats on her phone. She hadn't danced that many miles since Jazzy Jeff over the summer. That's high praise, translated for me in the way only a wife can, just so you know.

"Did you enjoy your first goth rave" was mentioned. "Yes, as a matter of fact I did, and now - I think I get it?" Which was true. Because the way you can be in a room full of people, experience a music that lulls you to an inside your head state within the communal reality of a gigantic dance party - that's as powerful as any church or great meal can be.

I had to see the fans, honestly. I had to see and feel the music, with the crowd reacting, to really get Underworld. I had to see the two guys, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, trading glances and then the most brotherly of embraces at the front of the stage after they finished.

I need all of that to know why it might not be my thing, but oh man, it is so cool to get to interlope on this thing, that matters so much, to so many people.

Let this stand as a reminder to go see great art in the community, even if you don't understand what makes it great, with people you love. The world is such a cool place. The game of figuring out why - my ADHD has so many ideas to chase, it's wonderful.

*OK not anything, but when somebody you respect gets this excited, even if you're not, that's a real signal you have to notice.

**power violence is another genre that does this so well, I still catch myself going back and throwing on old (things I had on) tapes in awe of their ADHD-tricks. Speed metal pacing for 30 seconds, bookended with a political speech and a cartoon sample - I mean, come on! Funny enough, Kenny loves power violence too. Someday, maybe I'll be able to better understand his form of ADHD. In the meantime, mysteries like this is part of what friends are for. Hey Kenny, wanna hang out and listen to Spazz next weekend?

***I don't think they actually played this song, but I was very entertained by this lyric when learning about the group. It also ties to the hip hop is hearing the city with the windows down in the car, and electronic music is putting your headphones on and experiencing the city with noise cancelling headphones and probably some drugs.

AND - if you never got to see Underworld live, or if you just want a taste, this Boiler Room was a really great entry/prep piece. We watched it after my wife got tickets. Seeing this was when I officially got excited to experience them live.