Moby's Area One Festival
Hot fun in the summertime
Blockbuster Pavilion, San Bernadino
August 5, 2001
Where da party at? Moby's vision brings rave culture to the masses with the inaugural tour of his Area One Festival. From Lollapalooza and Lillith Fair, to Ozzfest, Family Values, and the Van's Warped Tour, summer has always been a time for the big touring music festivals. Area One is the newest musical gypsy caravan to cross the nation. This tour is dedicated to turntable technology and dance grooves, with a bit of rock and hip-hop to balance it all out. This a a full-blown rave on wheels. The lineup changed slightly as the tour made its way across the country. The Orb, Paul Oakenfold, Rinôçerôse, the Roots, New Order, Outkast, and Moby brought the tour to a close here in San Bernadino. The tour also featured numerous other DJ's spinning in the Ford Focus Area.
Label them generation-fun dance culture is vibrant, energetic and loves to collectively bust a move. The Focus Area was transformed into psychedelic rave delight, the air filled with luminescent neon, and swirling colors from glow sticks. Assorted DJ pumped-up the volume filling the airwaves with sonic pleasures worthy of moving your body to. LA's own Jason Bentley from KROQ was among the DJ representing the flavor of turntable tech works.
Rinôçerôse
While two separate areas were devoted solely to DJ's the main stage showcased bands.
Opening the stage and working a big sound and phat house beats was a group of French rebels who go by the name of Rinôçerôse. House is thought of as predominately electronic genre, but this band doesn't seem to care about following the rules. They take the dub-house in bold new direction and do it well. The outcome is a upbeat part Euro-pop, part electronic sounding hybrid.
The Roots spread some love Philly ghetto style. They feature a full band playing the musical back drop for MC's Black Thought and Malik B's lyrical trade off. They played some flash back old school hip-hop, including a little taste of Slick Rick's "The Show". They were joined on stage at the end of their set by DJ Scratch who set fire to the mic with his all vocal spinning and scratch technique.
We got to hear "Blue Monday" played the original way as a new generation got introduced to New Order. One way for a old band to gain a new fan base, add a heart throb to your line up.
Peter Hook, Benard Sumner, and Stephen Morris toured the West Coast dates with Area One. They brought Smashing Pumpkins Corgan along for the ride as a hired guitar, and Billy in-turn brought his talent and a few hundred screaming teens to fulfill his end of the bargain. Billy Corgan was causing quite the commotion with the girls, but raging female hormones aside New Order played well and sounded great. It was a real treat to hear songs like "Bizarre Love Triangle", and "True Faith" live.
Hip-hop's most flamboyant act were "So Fresh, So Clean" -- Outkast were in the line up representing the dirty South sound Dre and Big Boi threw out some Stankonia playing among other song the three hits to come off their album "B.O.B." (Bombs Over Baghdad), "Ms. Jackson" and the above mentioned "So Fresh, So Clean". The vibe was hype, and they were tight, you could break a sweat just watching these guys work the stage.
New Order (w/Billy Corgan)
The headliner was of course, Moby. This man has insane energy and a stage presence that is both humble and powerful... he exudes life's force in every move. He runs around the stage like a man possessed by the will to rock, and rock he does. Although Moby is considered in the more electronic category, he still rocks. He also manages to play every instrument in the course of his set while alternating between keyboards, drums, and guitar he also sings and dances spastically in-between. His excitement is contagious, while watching Moby you start to feel a rush. He played a lot of songs from his most current album including "Find My Baby", "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?", "Southside", and "Bodyrock". He also treated the crowd to some of his older tunes, stating that he had fond memories of attending raves, and to date nothing brings back those good memories more than good old techno anthems. I have a feeling the crowd agreed as they allowed his performance to become one of their good memories.
For a new startup tour the show here in So. Calif. was a great success. It was well received by all who attended, and the performances were great. Let's just hope Moby sees fit to bring this tour around next year and we can all join the party and bust a move!
