2016-03-17 Columbiahalle - Berlin, Germany

[froopy seal]

I Exhale
If Rah
Dark Train
Juanita
Ova Nova
into Nylon Strung
Two Months Off
Eight Ball "I love that song"
Jumbo
Ring Road over Minneapolis beat?
Push (Upstairs)
King Of Snake w piano + sped-up part towards end? (green lasers before red dots)
Faxed Invitation
Dirty Club (some version I had not heard before, may have been a blend of mixes)
Low Burn
Rowla
Rez
into Cowgirl "I've spent a lot of time in Berlin recently, and this why"
Born Slippy (.Nuxx)

[amhilde]

After the hour and a half set for dubno shows, this show felt like it went on for a long time! I think I am still processing everything...the show was greaat but the crowd towards the front got pretty rowdy by the end and it wasnt a real pleasant place to be....

Moree tomorrow once Ive slept on in a bit.

[TheBang]

WTF, that setlist!

First time 8 Ball live by Underworld. First time Faxed Invitation live in non-demo version.

[darktrain]

Ring Road over Minneapolis beat?


Holy shit! They played this on one of the radio broadcasts (circa 2009 I believe?). Really really hope this shows up in Pomona next month!

[Troy McClure]

HOLY CRAP!
This looks incredible, and better than my wildest expectations!

Dirty into Low Burn into Rowla sounds magical.

[sunflowereye]

Good grief that set list in incredible. Very upset I can't make it to NYC or West Coast for any of those dates. :( I want to hear '8 Ball' live so badly.

[Dirty0900]

Only Born Slippy on YouTube for now with TMO.

http://youtu.be/jnjN3f3x7RA

[darkvoice]

Like the setlist of their first gig:

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/underworld/2016/columbiahalle-berlin-germany-73f03269.html

anyone seen them last night?

[potatobroth]

holy shit. i just became SUPER EXCITED for April.

EDIT: I keep refreshing my calendar.

[skyscraper101]

Setlist looks good. It'll be interesting to see how it varies tonight.

My main concern these days is not so much the setlist, but that they've been playing the tracks with very little to no variation from how they sound on the albums. One of the joys of watching them back in the day was how Rick used to play around with the samples, change the instrumentation, and fade in the b-line and synths at will.

These days it looks like a lot of pre-record going on, with only slight tinkering with delays and reverb on Rick's part. Darren seems to mainly be pressing play on the master laptop.

[froopy seal]

Holy shit! They played this on one of the radio broadcasts (circa 2009 I believe?). Really really hope this shows up in Pomona next month!
Ah, perhaps that's why it sounded vaguely familiar. Then again, I'm bad at track-spotting so it may have been a different track, not Minneapolis.

The boys were on stage for about 2:10 hours, from a few minutes to nine until 11:07. No encore (11 pm curfew?).

Eight Ball was special. One of my favourites, that "happy" finish is always so uplifting. Karl was all smiles. On the whole, he played with the audience more than on the Dubno tour I think.

I don't have the new album yet, so was excited how the tracks would work. I Exhale went quite well. I liked Nylon Strung best in this set.

Juanita was a big success. I had been late for the last Columbiahalle gig in 2008, and entered during Juanita. Good to be on time this time.

Push Upstairs, KoS, Rowla, Rez, Cowgirl and of course Born Slippy were intense. No-into, no-nonsense versions. Full-on energy.

A strong club-gig performance throughout. The crowd was good as well, partying hard on the classics, open towards the new tracks (more open than myself, I have to admit). I was about five meters from the front, hardly any rowdies there.

Only downside of the evening: Those two Currywürste before the show prevented me from feeling any of the gin + tonic.

[kontakt1968]

Wow nice setlist please please play 8 ball at the roundhouse!

[Professor]

Agreed. If they play that setlist in Oakland, I will forgive them for LA Dubno. I can't believe they played 8Ball and Faxed. AND Juanita.

[qirex]

These days it looks like a lot of pre-record going on, with only slight tinkering with delays and reverb on Rick's part. Darren seems to mainly be pressing play on the master laptop.

Darren looked so bored during that Colston Hall gig.

[skyscraper101]

Darren looked so bored during that Colston Hall gig.

I know. His job is literally cueing up the tracks on a macbook pro. I think I'd be bored if that was my only job too.

Also, everyone knows too that the desk and master laptops can be manned by one person. Darren himself covered Rick during part of the dubno tour so clearly two people up there with Karl isn't essential.

Compare that to the old days where Rick and Darren Emerson were criss crossing over each others backs all hands on the mixer, creating beautifully unique live extended versions of the tracks which made for excellent live sets which were all unique.

I just hope we get some unique track variations between each of these shows anyway. Or they will all just sound the same as the albums when downloaded.

[BrotherLovesDub]

That is the best looking setlist i've seen in years. Maybe a decade.

[holden]

Whoa! If they keep it going with setlist like that, I might have to do some traveling to meet them on tour!

Really curious to hear how Faxed Invitation went down live. One of my favorites from OWB.

[Troy McClure]

A few clips of 'Juanita' from the Berlin concert showed up on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib4cesCGowk

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXPstUo9Ya8

---Jason

[froopy seal]

By the way, someone was filming on-stage with big gear. Something visual in the making perhaps?

[earthportal]

I am super curious to see how "Faxed Invitation" sounds live. That's a really cool track.

[froopy seal]

I am super curious to see how "Faxed Invitation" sounds live. That's a really cool track.More or less like the album version, if memory serves. Don't get me wrong, I like the song a lot as well. It's just that, as much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with skyscraper:

My main concern these days is not so much the setlist, but that they've been playing the tracks with very little to no variation from how they sound on the albums. One of the joys of watching them back in the day was how Rick used to play around with the samples, change the instrumentation, and fade in the b-line and synths at will.

These days it looks like a lot of pre-record going on, with only slight tinkering with delays and reverb on Rick's part. Darren seems to mainly be pressing play on the master laptop.
:(

[DaddyAdv]

From the tubes:

Rowla:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1e5QTO6cU

TMO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWqsHbXHK6Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJzf6UpomJw

Nuxx:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFVeIwHcnbs

[amhilde]

More or less like the album version, if memory serves. Don't get me wrong, I like the song a lot as well. It's just that, as much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with skyscraper:


:(

Yeah - and I think for me that's why the show felt like it went on a while. The idiot standing in front of me on the rail with probably the best view in the whole place didn't move once and checked his phone for the time every 10 minutes. Oh, and his email.

I know we can't go back in time, but watching/listening to some of those past shows, they really went further and there was the potential for errors on stage which - made it more real and accessible and alive. And its not just Underworld - technology has eliminated a lot of this aspect for a ton of bands, just with Darren hanging around onstage you can actually see the mouse click, it isn't hidden away in the back somewhere :)

I had a good time and it was worth coming out to Berlin (again) for this show and a little vacation. I didn't get to see Rick on stage with the dubno shows, so it was great to see him and Karl having so much fun up there. The intro DJ was excellent (Dave is it?) - the bf got real excited when some obscure One Dove song was dropped in (of course we have the vinyl, I was told), but it seemed like the crowd was ready to go at about 8.30.

Froopy, not sure where you were, but we had some folks barge in to the front (never cool). The show was good for the most part until about Cowgirl and then I was shoved pretty hard from behind, overreacted by throwing an elbow, turned around to tell someone off and this guy started screaming at me in German (which I don't understand and can't respond to). It was pretty ugly all around, but this lady intervened (who, I noticed, I had stood next to at the Berlin Festival show) and it was fine after that but pretty anticlimactic. I think for Roundhouse I will hang back a bit and go with the flow.

[earthportal]

From the tubes:

Rowla:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1e5QTO6cU

TMO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWqsHbXHK6Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJzf6UpomJw

Nuxx:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFVeIwHcnbs

ahhhhhh I've only seen Underworld twice live and have never seen ROWLA live. That looks absolutely fantastic.

[earthportal]

More or less like the album version, if memory serves. Don't get me wrong, I like the song a lot as well. It's just that, as much as I hate to admit it, I have to agree with skyscraper:


:(

It's always great when the guys change things up live, so I definitely hear what you are saying. However I'm excited to hear something like "Faxed Invitation" and the same slow buildup that it has on the album, but on a massive scale like you get at a show. I think that would be really cool to experience.

[froopy seal]

Froopy, not sure where you were, but we had some folks barge in to the front (never cool). The show was good for the most part until about Cowgirl and then I was shoved pretty hard from behind, overreacted by throwing an elbow, turned around to tell someone off and this guy started screaming at me in German (which I don't understand and can't respond to). It was pretty ugly all around, but this lady intervened (who, I noticed, I had stood next to at the Berlin Festival show) and it was fine after that but pretty anticlimactic. I think for Roundhouse I will hang back a bit and go with the flow.I wasn't up front. The middle, more or less. Perhaps five meters from the front, a little to the right. At the end, there were two drunk idiots. Apart from that, it was quite packed but amicable. I apologise if I sweated on too many bystanders.

[Rioja]

My main concern these days is not so much the setlist, but that they've been playing the tracks with very little to no variation from how they sound on the albums. One of the joys of watching them back in the day was how Rick used to play around with the samples, change the instrumentation, and fade in the b-line and synths at will.

Indeed, indeed - I have to say "yes" to this. I mean, I am a die-hard UW fan (we all are, of course), but yeah I'm yearning to hear some serious improv! I loved it when, for example, different drums were played with Nuxx, Snake, etc. Also when songs began unusually like perhaps something just with the bass line or a single synth motif. Or, as Skyscraper notes, samples of Juanita's spoken word were peppered throughout a track's intro, outro, etc.

I forget which performance it is*, but there's this brilliant intro to Pearls where Juanita's laughter, shifted down in pitch, is played throughout. Such great, inspired stuff! And I know this isn't a radical departure, but I've always wanted to hear just the triangle from Moaner start the song, then maybe go into the short synth bit at the end...

(*Found it: was the legendary Blue Mountain performance from 1999. Mayan Theater in L.A. (forget which year) also had an incredible Pearls intro. But my all-time PG fave is probably the intro done at the I Love Techno fest. (Again, year? Seems I'm a bit daft when it comes to years.)

And don't get me wrong: I'm not saying I want to go back in time. I'm just saying I'd like to hear the individual tracks of each tune messed around with a bit in new ways, perhaps. Otherwise, the strips of paper labeled with the instrumentation for each song (for the purpose of being overlaid on the board) don't really need to be there.)

[TheBang]

I forget which performance it is*, but there's this brilliant intro to Pearls where Juanita's laughter, shifted down in pitch, is played throughout.
Being a little pedantic here, but it's Petra on Pearl's Girl, not Juanita.

[Rioja]

Being a little pedantic here, but it's Petra on Pearl's Girl, not Juanita.

Nice -- no, I appreciate the correction, man. I love to be a part of a community that knows these things because I'm pretty obsessive* about the band myself.

Ok so that I know the difference, who is talking at the beginning of Bruce Lee? (Telling the story about the "shooter".) I've always thought that was Juanita, but now it sounds like it's Petra.

Actually, more importantly, who exactly are Juanita and Petra? I've always thought the former worked at Tomato and maybe the latter is Rick's wife?

Obviously, I'm confused about this, so would someone straighten me out? (Bang, please?)

(*Not saying this like it's a bad thing; I just mean we're pretty detail-oriented around here and I love that. Would not have it any other way.)

[TheBang]

There's a lot of information about voices here:

17104

Juanita Boxhill and Clare Pugh were employees at Tomato. Both left now. Petra is a German art friend.

[Rioja]

There's a lot of information about voices here:

17104

Juanita Boxhill and Clare Pugh were employees at Tomato. Both left now. Petra is a German art friend.

Very cool, man. Thank you for that. I've always thought that a book needs to be written and/or film needs to be made about the journey from Screen Gemz to UW MK3. I mean, I know I'm getting off-topic here, and I apologize - but it's tough to stop this kind of ball once it starts rolling.

Their story is fascinating though because you've got two people way too smart for the dumbed-down status quo of the music industry. Same goes for their true fans too - I do truly believe that. And they're successful despite the fact that they refuse to play along with this teen-aged, sex-sells, consumerist, money-centric philiosophy.

True tale about a post-gig encounter I had with this most-would-say beautiful girl in L.A. after the Hollywood Bowl show in 2007. I was talking to her and she seemed fine and then she and I both noticed a young man with a facial deformity whose glance we caught for a brief second. And then she remarked to me something to effect of, "Gawd! Hunchback of Notre Dame..." or something awful like that.

And I'm sorry for my frankness here, but I just right then thought about that girl, "F--- off. Your attitude is not wanted here. Judging people the way you obviously do is not welcome here. Don't you get that we're all freaks -- either inside or outside or both? That's why we feel this camaraderie with this band. We don't really fit in anywhere else and we frankly don't want to."

It's like Karl says at the beginning of the I Love Techno gig that I can't remember the year of: "Junkies, criminals, fugitives, junkies criminals, fugitives... you are f*cking lovely!" I never thought his words there should've been taken literally, but rather as metaphors for us... we're not cool and we don't usually fit in, but here... we do.

We're the bleedin' Island of Misfit Toys, and maybe this is just the easily-dismissed, buzzed rant of someone who's always been an outsider. But I'm not convinced of that: I think there are at least a few out there who can identify.

Ok back on point: boys, would you please throw us a curveball or two? How about going from Rez/Cowgirl to the original or Telematic Born Slippy instead of Nuxx? (Or better yet, vice-versa.) Or maybe starting Dark Train with the middle-section (the low-pitched vocal samples) instead of how it starts on record? Or perhaps a bit of Winjer as a prefix to Kittens?

I'm just spitballing here...

[potatobroth]

Rowla is my favorite UWlive experience, hands down. I got goosebumps clicking that.

[TheBang]

UW just posted 28 min of pro-shot video from Berlin:

If Rah
Push Upstairs
Low Burn
NUXX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAUbRjx6ntw

[amhilde]

Nice - thank you for uploading! A bit scared to watch! :D

Oh jesus, I definitely made it on the reel, mostly during Low Burn starting at about 13:15. Potentially because I was the only one who knew the words and was blissing out? And during NUXX. Still feel so embarrassed by what happened :(

[DaddyAdv]

Wow, although they simply reproduce the album tracks, there so much energy.
Especially the opening of Push is so intense.
And you definately see R&K having a good time up there.

Now: how do we get the full concert pro-shot ? :-)