Orbital live at Somerset House
June 30th, 2002 by freddie96
Orbital
Somerset House, London
Saturday 22 June 2002
So the tickets were eventually booked, the weather reports checked and the vodka bought. The venue is Somerset House’s open-air court yard, the event is Orbital live and the atmosphere delectable.
Located on the voluptuous Strand in central London, Somerset House is an amazingly beautiful venue, home to (gulp) the Inland Revenue and the Courtauld Gallery. Walking through the main gates we are greeted by a sense of excitement, one that has been building all week.
The main stage looms from the far side of the square whilst a smattering of punters sit student like on the paving slabs or queue for a drink at the make-shift bar. As the atmosphere heightens and the crowds begin to form, we wind our way to the front of the stage in preparation of what we hope is going to be a hedonistic night of music-fuelled frivolities. This is a clean one for us and rightly so, as we don’t need chemicals to keep us hyped: the venue, the beautiful sky and the atmosphere is enough to charge us for hours after the set has finished.
As the boys step out onto stage, Somerset House goes wild with a crowd that is ready to charge the entire city of London. With their trademark light glasses clearly visible, the set begins with a roar of sounds and trips that set your body tingling with the new and familiar sounds that have become their trademark in the last thirteen years.
Mixing old with new, and throwing in the occasional oddity to keep us on our toes, we are treated to the delights of ‘Chime’, a Doctor Who remix and strangely enough ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ by that infamous band, Bon Jovi. For a milli-second the crowd is stunned, confused but still awe-struck and before you could utter a word the whole crowd erupts with laughter and the throb of dancing continues at an intensified rate.
The entire set lasts for approximately two hours, there are no warm-up bands or other artists involved, just pure Orbital in what is probably one of the finest gigs of their career to date. As they make to wind down the evening and eventually leave the stage, there is no rest, we’re not ready to just pack up and leave and the atmosphere is charged with chants, shouts and screams. After two more tracks the boys leave for good and the place transcends into a beautifully idyllic scenario of smiling faces, stories being exchanged and recitals of special moments, tracks and people.
A beautiful night, attended by beautiful people in a supreme location where we danced non-stop for hours with a breeze on our faces, clubbing like London has never seen before – this is definitely the way to go.
Sian Pickles
