Seemingly Adam Buxton of Adam and Joe fame, now on BBC Radio 6 Music, had the same idea and unbeknownst to me has been running a series called BUG doing just that at the BFI. Go figure.
I was therefore very excited to see that Buxton would be presenting a BUG special on Fatboy Slim Bug at the Brighton Fringe and booked my ticket immediately expecting a sellout (what with Norman Cook being a Brighton local).
A week before the event it was announced that Norman Cook would actually be in attendance and on the stage!
The event was held in the Dome, a vast semicircular performance space, so we were given a 15 minute call to take our seats. The adrenalin was already beginning to rise as the room as filled with a pulsing dance beat and the big screen showed a continuous shot of Buxton's face as he cycled through the streets of Brighton to reach the venue; beneath his chin a large countdown in minutes, seconds and milliseconds. As the countdown approached zero he arrived (in the film) at the Dome's entrance.
The format of the show is basically Buxton on a stage with a laptop from which he shows us clips, extract from You Tube comments and full length music videos - on the big screen - with surround sound - awesome!
First up Abba and Waterloo, apparently they won Eurovision in 1974 on this very stage.
Then we quickly moved onto Fatboy Slim, with some old favourites and some more obscure videos include one which was worthy of Andy Warhol and an early appearance by Paris Hilton. After a short interval Cook and his long standing producer joined Buxton on stage for some banter and more videos. A brilliant night out that everyone was talking about as they walked along the street away from the Dome.
On Friday night I was in bed earlyish (it had been heavy week), when the house started to shake with a pulsating trip hop beat. At first I assumed it was a student party with unusually good music taste then I realised that no student has a sound system that powerful and I dragged on some clothes and headed out to see what was going on.
Ar the end of my road was a mass of people, a large bus with a French woman in white on top, lots of big lights on wheels and projections onto the buildings nearby. As I reached the end of the road it moved off around the corner and I headed back to bed.
The next night I was ready and headed out at the first sound. Figures Libres was the name of the event which had been snaking its way around the city since dusk. The crowd were encouraged to send text messages that were then rad aloud to the trip hop sound track and projected onto the walls of buildings; the images then morphed into faces of people as the bus and crowd turned the corner into New England Road.
The music got louder, the projections bigger as the event moved beneath the railway tracks - a natural theatre. Dry ice was released and colour lights turned the space into the fiery heart of a volcano; then the lights turned blue and the projections changed to water, fish and swimmers whilst a woman on the bus played a reed instrument (a bassoon?) as the event reached its finale.
It was an amazing impromptu shared experience, that combined elements of a flash mob, a gig and a piece of performance art.
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