After spending a terrific night at "Wicked" in San Francisco, my friend Grant
and I crashed at my brother's house for a few hours.  When we got up, we
decided that we'd hit the Haight for some clothes and record shopping, then
try and meet up with Orbital down at the location.

Things were a bit dodgy as to how we were going to do the latter.  I'd heard
from Phil and Paul before the tour started, wondering why they weren't coming
to Salt Lake City.  The reason being the fact that throwing Moby and NASA on
the tour had complicated things beyond belief, along with a much higher price
tag.  Once the tour started, I heard briefly from the tour manager, Lane, but
nothing from the brothers.  I was wondering if they'd even recognize me again.
When I met Meat Beat the second time, they had no idea who I was.

Grant and I went into our first record shop on the Haight, "Reckless Records"
and thumbed around for decent used releases.  As I was pouring over one
section, I raised my head to see two bald men looking an old Ryuchi Sakamoto
record with much excitement.  I looked over in another corner of the shop to
see their sound tech thumbing through a pile of CDs, and Richard James and his
girlfriend going over another pile.  We had all landed in this shop at
virtually the same time.  I had entered the Twilight Zone.

I walked over to Phil and Paul and extended my hand.  At first they gave me
the "What the hell?" look, then smiles spread over their faces.  "What a wild
coincidence, what are you doing here?" Phil said.  "Well, its not that wild,
I'm in town to see you."  We all were a bit weirded out by the fact that it
was almost exactly one year ago when we first met.

We talked about the tour, Moby and the tour, Moby and the Internet, and a load
of other things.  Phil promised to put Grant and myself on the guest list.  He
also mentioned that Circa '93 had been cancelled and I was utterly shocked.
He said close to $90,000 had been lost on the show.  It made the measly $2500
I lost on the Communion Tour seem like a drop in the bucket.  We discussed the
fact that they were seriously unhappy over the fact that they couldn't get to
Salt Lake this time and the treatment I had been given by the agent.  Their
one request for this tour was that they get to Salt Lake, and that hadn't been
fulfilled.  Phil said that for the next tour, he was going to do all the
organizing himself, with weekend spots in different towns, allowing for a week
of sightseeing in the area.  I practically jumped up and down at this idea and
told them that I would love to show them the rest of Utah.

I recommended to Paul that they go hit "Recycle Records" because of the
quantity of old collectors items in there.  Grant wanted to go the other
direction so we could see some clothing shops.  So Grant and I parted ways
with Orbital and the rest, and said we'd meet up with them at the show.

After doing some more shopping, Grant and I were in Ameba looking at clothes
when Phil and Paul walked in again.  After accusing them of following us
around, we offered them a ride back to the hotel.  In the back of my mind, I
had images of us being hopelessly lost in San Francisco trying to find this
hotel.  Yet they happily accepted.  We visted another clothing shop together,
then went back to the car.  There was five minutes left before they had to be
back to the hotel, and I had no idea where I was going save for a direction
pointed to by a shop clerk.  After driving three blocks towards that area,
Grant found it on the map and we were able to continue on with more
confidence.  Of course, due to the *Zone* influence, the mixtape we were
playing in the car brought on "Naked and the Dead" at one point.  I jokingly
groaned that we should fast forward it when Phil stated, "Hey!  I know this
band!"  Amazingly enough, we got them to their hotel only five minutes after
they were supposed to be there.

When we arrived at the show later that night (after less luck finding the
venue as we had finding their hotel), we had no problems getting in.  Vapour
Space was playing at that point, but I only caught the tail end of his show.
It sounded very, very good.

Everything had been setup in the atrium of a design center.  It was almost
perfect, with two dozen Intellibeams, large hanging video screens, film loops
at the very top, and crystal clear sound without crushing speaker stacks.  It
was really a beautiful sight to see.  You could take an elevator behind the
stage up to any of the other four floors.  The glass windows allowed you to
look out over a pulsing audience as you ascended.  Scotto's light work was
impressive indeed.

Aphex took the stage next.  Rather, he sat the stage next, crouched back
behind a pile of equipment, as his dancer interpreted the sound for the
audience.  I became completely immersed in the performance.  Excepting a
wonderful interpretation of "Digideroo", I didn't recognize anything.  What I
did recognize was a sheer auditory assault of rhythm and noise.  It was simple
and worked well in a live situation.  I danced my bunz off and thought that
surely Orbital would have a tough time topping this, even though it was so
short (about 45 minutes).

As DJ Tim spun, I couldn't believe the simularity between what he likes to
play and what I like to play.  I thought I was the only person on the planet
who still played CJ Bolland's "Mindwar".  I recognized more favorites in his
set than any other DJ I've encountered.  As Grant and I were dancing, I
noticed Aphex's dancer near us.  I went over and introduced myself and asked
if he knew Ben Middleton.  He laughed and said that more people have said they
knew Ben than anyone else on this tour.  I told him that I was going to do the
Salt Lake show before it got blown out of proportion and he expressed the same
feelings towards the tour that Orbital gave me.  He mentioned that Richard's
new album was utterly "sick" and would be a true mindblower.  He told me that
the only reason Moby was on the tour was for name recognition, and I told him
that it definitely wasn't needed in Aphex's case.  He said they'd be back
around next year.

Orbital finally took the stage at around 11:45.  They started warming up the
audience and moving through "Impact" from the brown album.  Grant and I were
thrilled.  I noticed Aphex's dancer and another girl from the tour dancing
close to us and we all moved together in a wild sync as things built and
built.  Grant grabbed my shoulder and yeld in my ear, "Take out your
earplugs."  So I slowly...uncapped...my instruments.  Something I haven't done
at a concert for almost ten years.  "Lush" raged through my mind, body, and
soul with supreme clarity, but it wasn't loud enough to cause any pain.  There
was nothing, nothing better than this.  By the time they got to "Walk Now" I
was ready to shave my head.  When the final track, "Halcyon" came on, I was
ready to sell my soul.  I leaned towards Grant and said, "I should have lost
$5000 this time around."  It was so flawlessly executed by the Hartnolls that
it was one of the best moments in music I've ever witnessed.  To have seen Orb
exactly one month ago and now this was the most amazing fact to me.

When Moby came on, a half hour after Orbital's 90 minute show, I was looking
down on the stage from the fourth floor.  My raging high from hearing
Orbital's performance came crashing down as Moby kicked into a rap over "Ah".
Seeing Moby wail on an octapad while jerking around the stage with minimal
backing made me wonder what the point was.  At one time, his drummer was
softly drumming bongos while the taped backing raged over the soundsystem.
What the hell was that supposed to do?  There was about an estimated 10% of
the actual movements on stage that I could correlate to sounds coming out the
speakers.  When I saw Moby open for The Shamen almost two years ago, I was
floored.  Now I was almost physically ill.  Brian Behlendorf pointed out a fan
crushed against the stage holding up a crucifix for Moby and I felt like
puking "Exorcist stylee" from the fourth floor on his head.

I was seriously having heavy gastric pains in my stomach.  Partially due to
Moby's performance, but more due to the fact that I had dehydrated myself
during Orbital's performance.  Grant and I returned to the ground floor where
we talked with Garth for a bit, who was similarly disgusted, then we bought
t-shirts.  Grant looked at his newly purchased "See The Light" t-shirt, read
the disclaimer, "Do Not Expect A Rock Show" and then looked at the stage where
Moby was standing on a box, stage center, with his arms outstretched, doing
absolutely nothing during "Thousand".  We showed the shirt to Lane, the tour
manager who was standing near us at that point.  He breathed a deep, "Uh
oh..", then laughed.  Lane had been following the Internet fracas with Moby as
well.  When Moby dedicated "Next is the E" to, "Everyone with open minds,"
Lane turned to me and shouted, "THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU PETE!"  I hid my face in
my shirt and mocked cried, "I'm such an asshole, I'm sorry Moby."  Lane
laughed back at me.  It seemed that joking about the Internet fiasco was the
only highlight of Moby's show.

The lights came on, the audience started to clear out.  Grant pointed out a
certain bald head back behind the stage doing cleanup.  I snuck past security
to talk with Phil and congratulate him on the performance.  "Who died and made
you two guys God?" I asked.  He smiled and we talked about them coming back in
the spring.  I told them I would do whatever it took to get them in Utah again
and he said he would do the same.  More conversation ensued over everything
from pirate radio to John Peel, but then we had to go.  Phil encouraged Grant
and I to come to the afterparty for the show.  I said we would and promised
to meet him there.

When we got to the afterparty, Grant and I was so tired that we just sat in a
corner of the upper loft and fell asleep.  I saw Paul come up later with more
band members, but no Phil.  I wished they were playing some chill music rather
than more of the boom, boom, boom, since I was still feeling quite sick.  Yet,
we had no place to go until 4:45 when we would head to the airport.  I fell
asleep for a while.  When I woke up, I got Orbital's address from Paul and
he made me promise to take him snowboarding sometime.  He said Phil had
dropped by for a bit, but then grew tired and went back to the hotel.  I said
my goodbyes to him and pulled Grant off the dancefloor.

I must have been awake a grand total of three minutes on the plane.  I fell
asleep and woke up in Salt Lake City.  I had just experienced another
unbelievable weekend.

Shouts out to Greg Earle and his lovely wife, Andrea from Silent, Gianmarra,
and Howard.  I was really happy to have met so many more people this time than
ever before.

P.S. Phil made mention of a possible move to San Francisco.  Could be
interesting.