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Blogging SXSW: Moby and Justice
Intent on catching one of Moby 's several SXSW DJ sets, I planned all day to hit the big invite-only party sponsored by Playboy and get a two-for-one--Moby and Justice , an amazing French electro duo who I just caught a couple weeks ago on their opening night of the MySpace Music Tour and fell in love with sonically. Their opening song that evening, "Genesis," a hybrid of Star Wars' "Imperial March" and Michael Jackson's "Thriller," blew me away and turned the huge crowd into a rippling sea of dancers. The experience was intense.
Sadly, their appearance at the Playboy party did not have the same effect on me. After waiting with hundreds of other eager invitees in a chaotic line that wrapped around the abandoned-warehouse-turned-party-site, I finally gained access and took it all in. The whitewashed space was divided into separate rooms--the main section with a central bar and low-lying benches, a side room with a line of portable toilets on one wall and a small area staged for red carpet style photos on the other and the music room with a small stage and plenty of floor space for dancing.
I missed The Heavy and MGMT thanks to the waiting game outside, but I did manage to catch Moby's DJ set, my ultimate goal. Backed by a wall of pulsating LED lights, Moby took to the stage around 2 a.m. and immediately jumped into rave-ish beats that got the whole crowd flailing. The 45-minute set included Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At?" and Guns N Roses' "Paradise City," as well as a track or two from Moby's own 1999 release, "Play." The traditionally quiet performer maintained a constant smile throughout the set, making it obvious that he too was enjoying himself. Occasionally, he would back away from the table to dance a moment or raise his arms, inciting more reaction from the electrified audience.
Once Moby's performance came to an end, it only took a few minutes for Justice to get comfortable on stage and begin re-energizing the crowd. Unlike their recent gig in Austin, the French duo did not begin with the funky "Genesis," instead using other electro artists' music, most of which I didn't immediately recognize, throughout their set. Like putty in their hands, the up-tempo tracks merged together seamlessly at the whim of Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Auge. By this time, roughly 3:45 a.m., yours truly was exhausted, nearly hoarse and annoyed by the constant buzzing in my ears, a horrible price to pay for forgetting earplugs. I took in several minutes of Justice before I called it a night, leaving a few hundred people to dance until dawn.
