The standard play when you go to a concert is to snake your way through the crowd in an attempt to get as close to the front as possible. Or, if a mosh pit threatens to break out, as close as you dare.
So that's exactly what I did upon arrival at Auckland's Town Hall last night, winding my way through the horde to settle into what I evaluated to be a prime spot up close and slightly right of center. This, I would later discover, was absolutely wrong.
It was only when Flying Lotus' relentless levels of sub bass forced a retreat to the back of the room that I realised I'd spent half the night in exactly the wrong place. That's because all of the visuals being projected onto the gigantic screen behind him were in 3D.
In my initial position the 3D had looked cool, with psychedelic worm tunnels opening up in front of me before disintegrating and sending flying bits of debris over my head. Pretty neat.
But at the back of the great hall the depth of field became cavernous and all of the pop out elements became wildly more impressive. A disembodied red skull that circled over our heads before diving down at the crowd was particularly striking, the geeky cool of a rotating Star Destroyer was pretty nifty but most impressive was the way the fabric of the universe would occasionally tear apart in kaleidoscopic fashion with FlyLo at its violently trippy center.
