BrightestYoungThings: LiveDC: Bluebrain (with Outputmessage & Autorock) @ The Fridge

all words: Alfonso Bravo
all photos: Rachel Eisley and Bradley Portnoy
video: Josh Vaile

While I completely understand, and sympathize, with your need to get sweaty at Fatback, or at Timbaland, or to be at any one of the thousand other places in the city that had something going on this past Saturday night, if you weren’t one of the 125(+?) people that managed to snag a spot to stand at the Bluebrain show before they reached capacity, well, you missed out. Returning with a bill that featured Outputmessage opening and Autorock DJing throughout the night, it’s safe to say no one within The Fridge’s walls would have rather been anywhere else than in front of Bluebrain and Co.’s hypnotic celebration of light and sound.

By 9:30 space was tight and Outputmessage, Bernard Farley’s one-man electro-pop act, got started. Farley’s sound, polished and catchy on record, came across with an energetic urgency and welcome rawness live. His silhouette moved across the white projector light as he strutted and sang along to the infectious and bass heavy tracks of his catalog. Autonomous dance parties started throughout the crowd. Whatever visual component a one man+laptop setup lacks Outputmessage more than makes up for with sheer enthusiasm.

Flanking their projections behind blue podiums, Bluebrain’s Hays and Ryan Holladay opened with the slow, rumbling build of “Rotten Apples”, as video of a giant hovercraft closing in from a distance lit the stage. The Fridge served as a perfect venue, with its white walls allowing Bluebrain’s projections to be extended down the right side of the room, blurring the divide between stage and crowd. Despite being somewhat mired by the kind of technical sound issues that come with transforming unusual spaces into musical venues, the tracks that make up their upcoming debut “Soft Power” and their free EP “Cult Following” still sounded as lush and complex as ever. There were new video pieces mixed in with old as the Holladays blasted through their set, raising their arms in the air and crying out, seemingly both enticing anarchy and demanding allegiance. Yet for all the complexities in the music and imagery, Bluebrain’s driving beats served to remind the crowd that, throughout it all, they want you to dance, and they want you to have a good time. It’s this mix of boundary-pushing and dance floor populism that’s responsible for the fact that no one expects the small, intimate shows to happen for much longer as the rest of the city, and beyond, starts to catch on to how special what is happening in the world of Bluebrain is.

Bluebrain at The Fridge with Outputmessage and Autorock-424

Autorock was a perfect fit for the bill (and I’m not just saying that because he started the afterparty with an “Everything In Its Right Place” remix, which is the quickest way to my heart), rounding out Bluebrain’s preferred setup of opener+Bluebrain+DJ. Everything from the venue to the artists to the dancing in-between gave this, like most Bluebrain shows, a sense of being not quite concert, not quite dance party, and not quite multimedia art show. It’s something else, and it feels like that’s exactly what Bluebrain wants it to be.

Bluebrain at The Fridge with Outputmessage and Autorock-393