Lucky Dragons at Cafe Oto

Lucky Dragons at Cafe Oto

11 February, 2011
by: Robmccallum

It's play time!

As the age old saying goes, “everything in moderation, except moderation itself”. It’s one that gets me thinking every time I hear it, and never more than when I apply it to the music scene.

I’m struggling to recall amongst the myriad of acts who seem to spend entire gigs logging on to check their Facebook status, the last time I went to a gig and was truly enlightened by an act that throws moderation by the wayside. Having seen Lucky Dragons before at a show of mildly chaotic crowd participation, no-budget theatrics and its resultant mosaic of sound I was hoping tonight may be the night to see it cast aside once again. 

I've been aware of Lucky Dragons ever since I saw the 'Make a Baby' experiments on YouTube way back when, and the great thing about him is that you never know what to expect from his live show. To be honest it pretty much depends entirely on what project Luke Fishbeck has been tinkering with of late, and this isn't someone who has much time for standard instrumentation, except perhaps the use of a microphone.  I purposefully didn’t read anything about his recent shows so as to go in blind and let whatever his latest incarnation is just hit me straight-up.



Once support band Halo Halo has removed their kit from Cargo's loosely assembled stage, the space is cleared for an octopus-like contraption to be assembled in the middle of a now seated crowd. Quite quickly people gather around Fishbeck and his device to gain centre stage for what always promises to be a collective experience of art and music. The lights dim and a simple synthesised sound emanates around the now packed out venue. As this builds, Fishbeck fires up another arm of the device which sends out purple light onto the ceiling way over the heads of the crowd. At this stage he hands out CDs to those around him and motions for them to pass these in front of the light. As they do the level of distortion alters dependent on the speed and distance from the light source. As more people do this the sound intensifies much in the same way of the first passage of an Animal Collective show, creating a dizzying drench of noise intersected with distant echoes of Fishbeck's rambling yelps.

Fishbeck continues to pass round various props attached to his homemade octopus of sound for us to add further percussion in the way of heavily delayed maraca-type devices. As he does this, the sound swells and pulsates under the direction of those around him. When he eventually draws this to a close after a period of around half an hour, he disappointingly declares, “that’s it!” Like The Jesus and Mary Chain in their heyday, if you can do something so utterly affecting in a short amount of time, why hang around any longer?

As much as I enjoyed my previous experience of Lucky Dragons, I've never invested much time into them on record. As I watch people with eyes transfixed ,waving CDs in front of darting arrows of light, it’s easy to see why. Out of context this would, visually and audibly, more than likely make little to no sense. Yet as part of a completely unrehearsed exercise of spontaneous participation, it's a mesmerising display that absorbs all those present.

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Robmccallum