CONCERT REVIEW: Moby at Big Top, Oakland Events Center

- Robin Lapid

Question: When can you tell you're at a good show?

Answer: You can tell you're at a good show when, if you were distracted enough from the moment to notice (and you never are), you realize that you and the audience are One in agreement and joy.

Joy being the operative word at a Moby show. It's practically a mantra between songs ("this is another song I hope makes you want to explode with joy..."). And the sheer energy Moby creates alone can make a believer out of anyone. Even as I am a new fan of electronica, it didn't take a love of the genre so much as a willingness to experience joy in music and dancing, which *everyone* did.

Touring with fellow dance acts from 808 State to BT, Moby's 1 a.m. set at the U.S. Big Top tour was easily the most-anticipated reward of the night. Dressed in a "Vegan" t-shirt, Moby greeted the eager crowd with a polite introduction and quickly launched into an all electronic-dance set. Backed by a guitarist, drummer, and percussionist, he jumped back and forth and off of drums, keyboards and bongos set up on either side of him, pausing center-stage only to scream out in time with his own music. Moby, the outspoken animal-rights activist and self-professed "Christ-liker," was like Henry Rollins inhabiting the small frame of this disco ball of energy - it's hard to believe that this is the same person people confine solely to the role of "techno musician."

The music, like the man and performer, is not something you can pigeonhole. The 45-minute set, which covered old, new and unreleased remixes (from "Go" to "Feeling So Real" to "Drop A Beat"), was a cohesive fusion of styles, mixing industrial-flavored disco music with rock and punk and techno. But it was more like a fusion of moods and emotions; anger, joy, energy, release. And what Moby gave, the audience gave back. He repeatedly shouted, "Lift your hands to heaven!" and the crowd responded like it was some sort of otherworldly rave/revival where everyone is speaking in tongues but expressing it in dancing and movement.

Listen to albums like Everything Is Wrong and Animal Rights, and you'll know that Moby never takes a middle-of-the-road approach. Musically, he always hits the extremes, focussing his energy on an emotion or mood until he hits ground zero. And his live show is an entity in itself. Despite having to apologize for the bad lighting ("we can't see anything up here") and the high ticket prices, Moby's performance made up for everything lacking in logistics. It was a relentless show that never let up, heavy on pounding beats and rhythmic bursts of drums and voice. The combined energy was expressive and intense, the kind where you wonder afterward, "gee, we really did explode with joy." You don't really expect to find too much of that at raves in America these days, or at concerts in general. It's not even a concert so much as it is an experience, and that's probably the best compliment you can give. Cathartic? Yes. Disco? Definitely. Rock and punk? That too. The all-important Moby ideal of Joy? Without hesitation, of course. Absolutely.