Booka Shade at Matter

Booka Shade at Matter

06 April, 2009
by: Mcdean

Trekking to the outskirts of London at 1am? You're either disposing of a body or going to London's largest nightclub, Matter. This weekend you've been joined by a few thousand others, all on their way to see Berlin electro-duo Booka Shade play a sell-out show at Zombies Soundsytem in Matter's gargantuan room 1. If you are disposing of a body, no doubt you thought twice about rescheduling. 

This is one of those domino effect gigs where first your mate, then all your mates, then all their mates seem to be going, until by the time you get there you realise you're acquainted with the entire 500 metre queue. People who didn't have tickets pulled out every stop to get one, people in the media crammed their VIP lists, people working weekends phoned in sick, and one friend of mine even quit her job entirely for the sake of a freer-spirited and unspoiled Booka Shade weekend. In the whirling and whooping mass of euphoria that is the front of the room when Booka Shade kick off later on, one confused French girl  tries to cram £15 into my hand, confusedly believing that I had bought her ticket and am responsible for her being there. That's the spirit. 

Usually pretty roomy, as soon as 1:30am strikes, the stairs and hallways of Matter are crushed with the influx of people cramming into the club's main room for Booka Shade's set — just like that scene in Watership Down, only with more fake tan and fewer rabbits. The crowd is unruly, storming the room and fighting for the front. This is the desperation and excitement that awaits Booka Shade – but thankfully, everyone seems enormously happy at the same time. The sheer enthusiasm and anticipation in the air is tangible. With several thousand people screaming, cheering, punching the air, and occasionally each other as Booka Shade takes the stage, the room explodes into purple light as the bass and kick thump in for the first tune, Darko.  

Booka Shade are Arno Kammermeier and Walter Merziger, who started life in the early 1990s making synth pop. Moving into trance and techno as it began to take off in earnest; their international reputation grew as people's taste for their subtly complex yet minimal sounds and addictive grooves increased. Their sound is one of euphoric exploration. Tension builds and drops are well couched and unleashed at the optimum time. Organic beeps and a full, fat bass carry you through melodies that are more involved and compelling than your standard dance music, and Booka Shade's variety and depth is such that they pull more than the usual dance crowd. On stage, with Arno attacking an electronic drum kit and Walter on keys at the heart of the lightshow like a neon Mozart, hair everywhere, the duo are as in control as they are complicit in the crowd's joy. 

The intensity of the set and the crowd does not subside until the very end. Teasing the crowd again and again, Walter and Arno pause not once, but four times between songs, dropping the lights and sending the crowd into a frenzy of screaming, ‘STAY', ‘COME BACK', ‘MORE', and the occasional wide-eyed despairing question from a random ‘ARE THEY FINISHED?!'. Spacing out their hugest hits — In White Rooms, Body Language and Mandarine Girl — throughout the set, it's impossible not to get caught up in the sheer ecstatic intensity of several thousand people going crazy for Booka Shade, all over, huge grins replace the usual zoned-out dance-club stares. Once Booka Shade leaves the stage, nobody can quite believe it's over, and the screaming and jumping continues until the crowd eventually concedes, and drifts out to smoke, drink, and process what on earth just happened.

Thankfully, Stimming of Diynamic and resident DJ Schadenfreude set up shop in room 2 for the rest of the night, and keep those who just can't calm down after Booka Shade dancing until the boats arrived in North Greenwich to ferry them back to civilisation.

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Mcdean