From behind I hear,“If you’re not here, you don’t have youtube.”
Fortunately I do, and I brought along an extra ‘power up’ because of it. I’m standing right at the soundboard barricade in the middle of the tent. Hyde from that 70’s show is in there with extra festival workers. The Cure is playing in the field, but this must be the place to be. As the shift change happens and Etienne’s own sound guys take over, they throw down some AC/DC and Police.
I turn and burn and realize, other than that youtube video, I know jack shit about this guy’s music. I looked him up on wikipedia and he was a producer and force behind french electronic music for the past two decades, but I don’t know his music at all. We are spirits in a material world. Sting.
An alarm starts sounding. The curtain drops and there is the set of Hollywood Squares. Etienne is in Whoopi’s square, and the rest are empty. Alarm. The lines of the tic tac toe board flash along with the. Alarm. Beats and Beats, and the rise and fall. Alarm. Is everyone ok? should I be afraid? ALARM.
Break. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Alarm. Now flashing in sync with the center square. The one HE is in. I get it. HE is dangerous.
As the set builds a constant stream of expletives rain down from stunned parishioners. “No Fucking Way!” “Holy Fucking Christ” “Oh Shit! Oh Shit!”
What began as Simon says had transformed into an infinitely expanding 3D wire world. Grids and blocks with mind bending relevance to the beats and bloops. He is twisting our melons with knobs in a cube. If there is a night club in Tron, this user, Etienne, wrote the code.
The confusion and beats are digitizing the collective soul in this desert tent and he flashes. Not a little flash. Blinding light. And not just one. It’s a strobe of epic magnitude and duration. A fellow marinaut later recalled closing his eyes during the assault and being unable to escape the flash.
Many people that have epileptic fits report fantastic spiritual experiences. As such, Etienne de Crecy is the John the Baptist of the grand mal seizure. Twisting technology into a transformational experience.
The one flaw with the technique is that, at points, it was too literal. I get it, man. You are dangerous. That drum trigger makes that light blink. The control and polish he displayed certainly brought ecstasy, Maybe someone baptized in that crowd will bring us everlasting life.
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