Originally posted by Alex S:
Heh - now that would be cool! 
There's a real sense of excitement to the Retro Future recording.
I guess it's like a comeback show!
I keep trying to put myself in the shoes of somebody who lost touch with John's music in the mid 80s then rediscovered it in 97.... going to the first live performance of this new phase of the career What surprises would be in store.. would it still be the same music, etc.... Those were exactly the shoes I was in in '97, Alex.
Since Metamatic John had been more or less my main man musically up to In Mysterious Ways. Then, besides reading a little something about Nation 12 in one of the music weeklies and the release of Assembly, I heard nothing of John up to '97, in those (for me, anyway) internet-free years.
Then one Friday in October of that year I was perusing The Dudley News gig listings and saw to my astonishment that John was playing The Robin 1, Brierley Hill, on the Sunday. At the time I lived just a mile from that now demolished venue.
I phoned The Robin and was told that there was no need to get an advance ticket and to just turn up on the night. So two days later I strolled down the dual carriageway to The Robin, met a friend in the pub part of the building, and wondered what form the concert would take. As the albums following Metamatic gradually moved away from the cold electronic sound I was expecting a band, like on The Golden Section Tour. What happened was largely what you hear on Retro Future. I was amazed. Possibly the highlight for me on that night was Shifting City. It's not often I'm blown away by a song the first time I hear it, particularly when it's played alongside songs I've known and loved for years, but that was the case with Shifting City, its orgasmic coda playing in my head for the rest of the night.
I would put the attendance for that show at around 140, so there was a bit of a lack of atmosphere - it was a low key tour that received less publicity than the following year's Exotour.
Three months later I was at Shrewsbury for the show that became Retro Future. Same set, same thrills. The sound of the crowd makes the venue seem pretty full on the album, but there were actually only about 200 people there in a hall that looked like it could hold about 400.
) but I have to say just how different this is to the Exotour CD. The crowd really make this CD for me. Like a small disc-shaped TARDIS, I'm sent spinning back in time to the Astoria and wondering if he'll ever play any of the 'classics', and then to hear 'Hiroshima...' start up was just electric - and this live document captures that so well.
