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That Underworld was triumphant at the Fox Theater in Oakland August 7 wasn’t really a surprise. After two decades of touring, they are self-assured, charismatic performers with a substantial army of tricks. But because they almost play in 20,000 seat venues or festivals, seeing them up close, indoors, in a beautiful venue had “event” written all over it.

So it’s also not surprising that the show was as beautiful as the venue. Underworld has long been known for their impeccable visual taste and everything, from Karl Hyde’s shiny jacket, which could have been equally at home on the shoulders of Judy Garland or Michael Jackson, to brilliant backdrops, floating balls and those moving pillars from the 2007 tour, worked in tandem to prove the point.

It didn’t hurt that the music was terrific. The hits were all there, played to perfection. So after they drove the crowd into a prolonged catharctic frenzy with “King of Snake” and “Born Slippy,” it was a shock to look at the clock and realize they had been on stage for almost two hours — it felt like half that — and that the concert was almost over.

The set was so good, in fact, that it overshadowed the reason we went in the first place, which was to see what the first live broadcast to the iPhone was like. And on that level, it seemed like a nonevent. Few in the audience seemed to be aware of the broadcast in the first place. And oddly, given that Cupertino is just a hop away from Oakland, there was no cadre of corporate VIPs or no signage hyping up the event. Had Underworld not told the crowd to wave during a refreshingly rare pan across the room or thanked Apple and Quicktime at the end of the show, most people still wouldn’t have known the show went live all over the world.

And, although it may have been due to a simple oversight, the theater didn’t unlock their Wi-Fi network, which meant I couldn’t get on the site. After asking four or five staff employees for the password and coming up empty handed, I felt like I was wasting my time with phone sex while the real thing was right in front of me. So I stopped worrying about the “wonderful and hot times/On your telephone line” they were singing about and, like the “drive boy” I am, turned off the phone and screamed “mega mega white thing” along with everyone else in the room.

Words by Neil Feineman, photos by Camera Girl

 

4.67 (3 votes)

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