A lot of the crowd became Outsiders of the tent
The Slam tent at T in The Park always throws up some legendary performances but sometimes the talking points from it are on the quiet side. Perhaps its due to the loud music or maybe its just because its inhabitants know how to party all throughout the day and night and dont have time for telling tales but the set from DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist has already created plenty of chat and debate and is likely to split opinions on how the show went down.
Starting with a lengthy video introduction explaining how the set was going to pan out, how all the music would come from 45rpm records and all the records would be spun on 8 turntables by Shadow and Chemist. Like his previous show in Glasgow, DJ Shadow went out of his way to apologise and to make it clear to fans that if they were looking for an evening of house music, then perhaps they were in the wrong place. Which in a way is commendable, the duo were going to be combining in a similar format to their previous collaborations entitled 'Brain Freeze' and 'Product Placement' and the new set, 'Hard Sell' appeared to be following the same path, and the set slowly kicked off with some slow soul and funk.
It never looked like kicking off (again, just like Shadow said) but after about ten minutes, the tent started to empty and people were filtering out extremely unhappy with their lot. Whilst theres no doubt that the opening part of the set wasnt the most technically gifted or emotionally charged, the biggest problem lay in the fact that this set was occurring in the Slam Tent in the early evening. As the day wears on, the inhabitants of the Slam Tent are starting to come up and need something harder to keep them dancing and to maintain the vibe. When the beats never increased or the tempo never increased, the dancers were let down and made their displeasure known, some by booing, others by walking out.
And thats the problem because as the set continued, the Northern Soul and funk elements of the set continued and if the mixing lacked a consistent edge, the music on show was highly enjoyable. At one point utilising the samples that De La Soul used to great success of '3ft High and Rising' there was the usual old-school charm to be expected from a DJ Shadow set but by the end of the show, modern tracks by acts like the Foo Fighters were making their way in and thiose that hung around were enjoying themselves.
The last two times R13 has caught up with DJ Shadow, we've came away feeling sorry and embarassed for him, its clear he works hard and wants to keep putting on shows but he appears to have lost his old-time fans and who knows how long they'll be willing to stick around. Its clearly a case of the wrong place at the wrong time for DJ Shadow but on its own merits, it wasnt that bad a show.